Episode 154: A STORM OF SWORDS, TYRION I: "Father and Son" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.

Welcome to the one hundred and fifty-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Father and Son: An Analysis of ASOS, Tyrion I” in which Tyrion Lannister has a real heart-to-heart with dad which results in them throwing the pigskin around for a bit.

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Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Red Rahloo himself, a high lord who has renounced his allegiance to the squishers, asks:

Who has the best “first chapter” in the series? For example, Jon 1 ASOS, Bran 1 ADWD, Tyrion 1 ACOK, etc

So, thank you Red Rahloo for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions that we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, bonus episodes (like our upcoming analysis of the movie Waltz with Bashir), free merch, access to the NotASlack and more!

Yes indeed! And we will announce this for our September Update for all of our patrons, but we’re revamping our long-term stretch goal for our patreon. Remember, Emmett, a year or so ago, we started this series on your favorite TWOW, well your favorite A Song of Ice and Fire chapter known as the “The Forsaken”? So, I was thinking. How about we do a multi-part series on TWOW, Theon I, my favorite TWOW sample chapter? Yes? Or yes? Anyways, we’re making it part of our stretch goal. So, if we can get this patreon on up to 1,050 total patrons, we will do a multi-part analysis of Theon’s TWOW sample chapter. So become a patron or be square.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Tyrion, he had drifted in and out of consciousness and finally awoke to find himself noseless and left alone in a dark room to die. He didn’t though, but that doesn’t mean life is happy and full of joy as we’ll find out in this synopsis of ASOS, Tyrion I!

Synopsis

He woke to the creak of old iron hinges.

"Who?" he croaked. At least he had his voice back, raw and hoarse though it was. The fever was still on him, and Tyrion had no notion of the hour. How long had he slept this time? He was so weak, so damnably weak. "Who?" he called again, more loudly. Torchlight spilled through the open door, but within the chamber the only light came from the stub of a candle beside his bed.

When he saw a shape moving toward him, Tyrion shivered. Here in Maegor's Holdfast, every servant was in the queen's pay, so any visitor might be another of Cersei's catspaws, sent to finish the work Ser Mandon had begun.

Well, it sure is great that things are so much improved for Tyrion Lannister. Let’s see here: we’ve got Tyrion still weak from his wounds and paranoid that Cersei is still out to get him. Boy, I sure do hope that this is the worst for Tyrion in this book.

Alas, things are not quite as bad as Tyrion believes as it’s Bronn who’s come for Tyrion this time. He asks if Tyrion cut himself shaving, and Tyrion jests that yup, he did. Big ass razor got his nose. Now let’s talk a little about Bronn. This man is looking STYLISH with nice high boots, a cloak of green silk and a bright green chain sigil stitched into the silken cloak. Dazzling.

Tyrion wants to know where Bronn has been. It’s been two weeks, bro. But Bronn’s all like, uh, it’s been four days, and he’d been here twice before only find Tyrion asleep, dead to the world.

"Not dead. Though my sweet sister did try." Perhaps he should not have said that aloud, but Tyrion was past caring. Cersei was behind Ser Mandon's attempt to kill him, he knew that in his gut. "What's that ugly thing on your chest?"

Bronn grinned. "My knightly sigil. A flaming chain, green, on a smoke-grey field. By your lord father's command, I'm Ser Bronn of the Blackwater now, Imp. See you don't forget it."

Annoyed, Tyrion says that he, Tyrion of House Lannister, promised Bronn a knighthood, rather than his dad who sucks. He’s also annoyed at Bronn getting rewarded for his service while Tyrion lost his nose. He asks if Tywin knighted Bronn, but no. Bronn got his knighthood from the High Septon and the three surviving members of the Kingsguard. Reminded of those beloved white cloaks, Tyrion mentions that Mandon died in the battle, leaving out the part where Podrick Payne shoved him into the river. He asks who else died. Well, Sandor Clegane fled the battle after Tyrion ordered him to attack.

Not one of my better notions. Tyrion could feel the scar tissue pull tight when he frowned. He waved Bronn toward a chair. "My sister has mistaken me for a mushroom. She keeps me in the dark and feeds me shit. Pod's a good lad, but the knot in his tongue is the size of Casterly Rock, and I don't trust half of what he tells me. I sent him to bring Ser Jacelyn and he came back and told me he's dead."

"Him, and thousands more." Bronn sat.

"How?" Tyrion demanded, feeling that much sicker.

As to how Jacelyn died, he was ordering men back to the walls after Joffrey bravely ran away from the battle. He almost turned the tide, but then he got an arrow through the neck and was pulled from his horse and then killed. Angry, Tyrion thinks that’s a debt to lay at Cersei’s feet. How about Joffrey though? Was he in danger? Not really. He also wasn’t wounded. Okay, fine, who commands the gold cloaks now that Ironhand is dead? Ser Addam Marbrand of course: he of the dreamy looks and long, red hair.

Tyrion next turns to the mountain clansmen. What happened to them? The Stone Crows are still in the kingswood with Shagga liking the woods more than the city. Timett and the Burned Men headed back to the Vale. Chella turned up at the River Gate with some of her Black Ears, but the red cloaks chased them away as the good city folk threw shit at them as they fled. Tyrion is angered by this ingratitude at how the fine city folk treated his warriors. They died for them.

Anyways, Tyrion asks next for an update on Alayaya which, um, turns out to be a terrible thing. Cersei did free Alayaya, of course, but only after she was stripped naked and then whipped bloody against a post.

She was learning to read, Tyrion thought, absurdly. Across his face the scar stretched tight, and for a moment it felt as though his head would burst with rage. Alayaya was a whore, true enough, but a sweeter, braver, more innocent girl he had seldom met. Tyrion had never touched her; she had been no more than a veil, to hide Shae. In his carelessness, he had never thought what the role might cost her. "I promised my sister I would treat Tommen as she treated Alayaya," he remembered aloud. He felt as though he might retch. "How can I scourge an eight-year-old boy?" But if I don't, Cersei wins.

First but definitely not last time in ASOS, but obligatory Tyrion is GOOD.

The thing is that Tyrion doesn’t have Tommen anymore. The Kettleblacks retrieved him from Castle Rosby. Though this is a blow to Tyrion, he feels relieved that he doesn’t have to carry out whipping an eight year old boy -- especially a boy that he liked a fair bit. But wait, the Kettleblacks were Tyrion’s creatures. What happened there? Well, Bronn was matching Cersei’s coin, but Osney and Osfryd were knighted for doing a very brave amount of nothing during the battle.

My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like?

Next Tyrion asks for an update on Stannis. Bronn reports that Stannis’ men fled the battle after Tywin, no wait, Lord Renly arrived on the battlefield. They turned cloak to Renly during the battle. Upset that he was upstaged by a dead Renly, Tyrion asks how Stannis escaped. He and some of his loyalists got out via Lyseni ships out on the bay.

Great. Now do Robb Stark, Bronn. What’s he been up to? Bronn, who apparently is doing a nightly news segment at this point, says that northmen are burning their way down towards Duskendale, and that Tywin had deployed Randyll Tarly to stop him. Bronn thought he might join up as Randyll was a good soldier and gave out plunder to his troops. That Bronn was considering this sends Tyrion. He tells Bronn to stick around as he’s the captain of the Hand’s Guard. Yeah, but Tyrion isn’t the Hand. Doesn’t matter. If Bronn is still interested in gold, then Tyrion has a task for him.

“What do you know of Ser Mandon Moore?"

Bronn laughed. "I know he's bloody well drowned."

"I owe him a great debt, but how to pay it?" He touched his face, feeling the scar. "I know precious little of the man, if truth be told."

"He had eyes like a fish and he wore a white cloak. What else do you need to know?"

"Everything," said Tyrion, "for a start." What he wanted was proof that Ser Mandon had been Cersei's, but he dare not say so aloud. In the Red Keep a man did best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders. "Help me up," he said, struggling with the bedclothes. "It's time I paid a call on my father, and past time I let myself be seen again."

Bronn makes fun of Tyrion’s facial beauty, which, um, kind of a dick move, brah. Tyrion self-deprecates anyhow and then asks if Margaery is in town yet. She isn’t, but she’s enroute. There are lots of Tyrell and Reachmen in King’s Landing though, and they are having very lots of much sex.

They spit on me, and buy drinks for the Tyrells.

Tyrion calls for Podrick as he gets out of bed. When the boy comes scrambling in, asking what Tyrion needs, Tyrion tells him he needs some clean clothes to wear. He’s leaving this cell. It takes three men (or two men and a boy) Maester Frenken, Bronn and Podrick to dress Tyrion given all of his wounds. The maester changes Tyrion’s dressing on the wound to his shoulder which sends a fury of pain through Tyrion’s body. He ends up drinking a cup of dreamwine for pain relief and “fortification”, but he finds himself dizzy from drink and probably from pain too.

Bronn, Tyrion and Podrick make their way down stone steps, passing by a servant girl who looks terrified of Tyrion’s visage. Arriving at Maegor’s Holdfast, they find Ser Meryn Trant on-guard with the drawbridge raised. Tyrion orders it lowered, but Meryn retorts that the queen orders it raised at night when she sleeps.

"The queen's asleep, and I have business with my father."

There was magic in the name of Lord Tywin Lannister. Grumbling, Ser Meryn Trant gave the command, and the drawbridge was lowered. A second Kingsguard knight stood sentry across the moat. Ser Osmund Kettleblack managed a smile when he saw Tyrion waddling toward him. "Feeling stronger, m'lord?"

"Much. When's the next battle? I can scarcely wait."

They make their way over to serpentine steps that go up Maegor’s Holdfast. Tyrion realizes that he can’t climb them given his wounds; so, he swallows his pride and asks Bronn to carry him, hoping that no one sees his shame.

The outer ward had lots of Reachmen in and around, folks hanging out, waiting for King Joffrey’s wedding to Margaery. Is Tyrion planning to attend?

"Ravening weasels could not keep me away." There was this to be said for weddings over battles, at least; it was less likely that someone would cut off your nose.

Savor that thought, Tyrion. Savor. It.

When they reach the Tower of the Hand, Tyrion sees his father’s men on-guard, and they admit Tyrion into the tower. On the way up the stairs, they encounter Ser Addam Marbrand who is coming down. Surprisingly, Addam acts chivalrously towards Tyrion:

"My lord," he said, "how good to see you on your feet. I'd heard-"

"-rumors of a small grave being dug? Me too. Under the circumstances it seemed best to get up. I hear you're commander of the City Watch. Shall I offer congratulations or condolences?"

"Both, I fear." Ser Addam smiled. "Death and desertion have left me with some forty-four hundred. Only the gods and Littlefinger know how we are to go on paying wages for so many, but your sister forbids me to dismiss any."

Still anxious, Cersei? The battle's done, the gold cloaks won't help you now. "Do you come from my father?" he asked.

Indeed, Addam had come from Tywin, and he left Lord Tywin in a bad mood. You see, Tywin had ordered Addam to find Tyrek Lannister, but cousin Tyrek remains missing. Bronn thinks Tyrek is dead as Jacelyn Bywater looked hard for him. He tells Addam to give up the search, but Tywin is stubborn. And so is Addam as a result. Anyways, Tyrion can find the happiest man in Westeros in his solar.

My solar, thought Tyrion. "I believe I know the way."

The way was up more steps, but this time he climbed under his own power, with one hand on Pod's shoulder. Bronn opened the door for him. Lord Tywin Lannister was seated beneath the window, writing by the glow of an oil lamp. He raised his eyes at the sound of the latch. "Tyrion." Calmly, he laid his quill aside.

"I'm pleased you remember me, my lord." Tyrion released his grip on Pod, leaned his weight on the stick, and waddled closer. Something is wrong, he knew at once.

"Ser Bronn," Lord Tywin said, "Podrick. Perhaps you had best wait without until we are done."

Bronn gives Tywin an insolent look but bows and leaves with Podrick practically running out of the room. As they depart, Tyrion wonders what lies Cersei has fed Tywin about Tyrion. And how about we behold this Tywin Lannister. How does he look since the last time we saw him?

The Lord of Casterly Rock was as lean as a man twenty years younger, even handsome in his austere way. Stiff blond whiskers covered his cheeks, framing a stern face, a bald head, a hard mouth. About his throat he wore a chain of golden hands, the fingers of each clasping the wrist of the next. "That's a handsome chain," Tyrion said. Though it looked better on me.

Tywin ignores Tyrion’s words and asks if Tyrion should be out of his sickbed. Yes, yes, Tyrion should. He’s sick of being in that sickbed. As to why he’s there as opposed to a room with a view, it’s just because the Tyrells are in town, and the Red Keep is crowded. That’s all, Tywin pinky swears it.

Tyrion notes that everyone is in town for the wedding, and when will those bells sound?

"Joffrey and Margaery shall marry on the first day of the new year, which as it happens is also the first day of the new century. The ceremony will herald the dawn of a new era."

A new Lannister era, thought Tyrion. "Oh, bother, I fear I've made other plans for that day."

"Did you come here just to complain of your bedchamber and make your lame japes? I have important letters to finish."

"Important letters. To be sure."

"Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens.”

Why, whatever could that mean, Tywin? Some won with swords and spear and others with letters. Who might you be writing to, I ask, knowing.

Still, Tywin isn’t about Tyrion’s reproaches. He visited Tyrion’s sickbed when it seemed like Tyrion would die. But why did Tyrion dismiss Maester Ballabar? Because Ballabar was trying to keep Tyrion insensate. False, Tywin declares. Ballabar was a healer, and Cersei sent him to look after Tyrion when she feared for his life.

Feared that I might keep it, you mean. "Doubtless that's why she's never once left my bedside."

"Don't be impertinent. Cersei has a royal wedding to plan, I am waging a war, and you have been out of danger for at least a fortnight." Lord Tywin studied his son's disfigured face, his pale green eyes unflinching. "Though the wound is ghastly enough, I'll grant you. What madness possessed you?"

"The foe was at the gates with a battering ram. If Jaime had led the sortie, you'd call it valor."

Call this the “Helmets are hardly heroic” defense. But Tywin knows better. Jaime would not be so dumb as to remove his helmet. PS, you killed the guy who took your nose, right Tyrion? Yeah, that dude’s very dead, Tyrion says, but he thinks that Podrick was the one who did Mandon Moore in. He is very curious about who sent Mandon Moore, and he totally knows who sent him.

Anyways, why is Tywin here rather than fighting Robb Stark or Stannis? He’s here, because they don’t have the ships to assault Dragonstone. But Lord Redwyne is bringing his fleet to assist with all that. As for the Starks, Tywin sent Gregor Clegane and Randyll Tarly to deal with the northern host descending on Duskendale:

"Duskendale?" There was nothing at Duskendale worth such a risk. Had the Young Wolf finally blundered?

"It's nothing you need trouble yourself with. Your face is pale as death, and there's blood seeping through your dressings. Say what you want and take yourself back to bed."

"What I want . . . " His throat felt raw and tight. What did he want? More than you can ever give me, Father.

For now, though, Tyrion deflects and asks about Littlefinger being made Lord of Harrenhal. True, but it’s an empty title so long as Roose Bolton holds the castle for Robb Stark. Hm. Hmmm. HMMMM. Anyways, Littlefinger wanted the title, and he did good service by arranging the Margaery-Joffrey match. Uh, that was Tyrion’s idea, he thinks but doesn’t say. Regardless, Littlefinger is up to something. Anyways, about those paying of debts. Time for Tyrion to benefit, baby.

Tywin says fine, whatever. What do you want Tyrion?

"A little bloody gratitude would make a nice start."

Lord Tywin stared at him, unblinking. "Mummers and monkeys require applause. So did Aerys, for that matter. You did as you were commanded, and I am sure it was to the best of your ability. No one denies the part you played."

"The part I played?" What nostrils Tyrion had left must surely have flared. "I saved your bloody city, it seems to me."

"Most people seem to feel that it was my attack on Lord Stannis's flank that turned the tide of battle. Lords Tyrell, Rowan, Redwyne, and Tarly fought nobly as well, and I'm told it was your sister Cersei who set the pyromancers to making the wildfire that destroyed the Baratheon fleet."

Wow, that is real fucking bold of you, Tywin to claim it was you who won the battle. Tyrion is understandably embittered by this turn in the conversation and voices that embitterment. Tywin grudgingly praises Tyrion’s chain as a “clever stroke”, and the Dornish alliance was Tyrion’s idea too, Tywin concedes. But Tywin dislikes that Tyrion gave up a Lannister to the Dornish as a hostage. But no matter. They’ll have their own Dornish hostage as soon as the Dornish come to King’s Landing to take up their council seat.

"Would that a council seat were all Martell came to claim," Lord Tywin said. "You promised him vengeance as well."

"I promised him justice."

"Call it what you will. It still comes down to blood."

"Not an item in short supply, surely? I splashed through lakes of it during the battle." Tyrion saw no reason not to cut to the heart of the matter. "Or have you grown so fond of Gregor Clegane that you cannot bear to part with him?"

Per Tywin, Gregor is quite useful as a monster. And hey, Tyrion, you too have monsters too like Bronn and the clansmen. Tyrion thinks that’s a good point, but hey maybe, like, you can get other monsters, dad? Maybe. But seriously, Tywin’s got all these letters to write. So get the fuck lost, Tyrion.

Tyrion rose on unsteady legs, closed his eyes for an instant as a wave of dizziness washed over him, and took a shaky step toward the door. Later, he would reflect that he should have taken a second, and then a third. Instead he turned. "What do I want, you ask? I'll tell you what I want. I want what is mine by rights. I want Casterly Rock."

His father's mouth grew hard. "Your brother's birthright?"

Tyrion corrects Tywin. Jaime can’t inherit as he’s a kingsguard knight even if Tywin won’t acknowledge it. Tyrion is Tywin’s son and the lawful heir. Sorry, not sorry, dad.

Lord Tywin's eyes were a pale green flecked with gold, as luminous as they were merciless. "Casterly Rock," he declared in a flat cold dead tone. And then, "Never."

The word hung between them, huge, sharp, poisoned.

I knew the answer before I asked, Tyrion thought. Eighteen years since Jaime joined the Kingsguard, and I never once raised the issue. I must have known. I must always have known. "Why?" he made himself ask, though he knew he would rue the question.

"You ask that? You, who killed your mother to come into the world? You are an ill-made, devious, disobedient, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine. To teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men shall ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse."

Tyrion suddenly realizes why Tywin is so angry at him. Cersei had told Tywin about Alayaya. Tywin doesn’t give a shit about this sex worker’s name. PS what was the name of the whore that Tyrion married when he was a boy?

"Tysha." He spat out the answer, defiant.

"And that camp follower on the Green Fork?"

"Why do you care?" he asked, unwilling even to speak Shae's name in his presence.

"I don't. No more than I care if they live or die."

"It was you who had Yaya whipped." It was not a question.

Tywin basically shrugs his shoulders. Tyrion threatened Tommen. Or so Cersei said. Was that a lie? Not a lie exactly, but Tyrion was trying to keep Alayaya safe.

"To save a whore's virtue, you threatened your own House, your own kin? Is that the way of it?"

"You were the one who taught me that a good threat is often more telling than a blow. Not that Joffrey hasn't tempted me sore a few hundred times. If you're so anxious to whip people, start with him. But Tommen . . . why would I harm Tommen? He's a good lad, and mine own blood."

"As was your mother." Lord Tywin rose abruptly, to tower over his dwarf son. "Go back to your bed, Tyrion, and speak to me no more of your rights to Casterly Rock. You shall have your reward, but it shall be one I deem appropriate to your service and station. And make no mistake-this was the last time I will suffer you to bring shame onto House Lannister. You are done with whores. The next one I find in your bed, I'll hang."

Fuck. Talk about one of the most devastating dialogue scenes in these books. Wow. What a start to Tyrion Lannister’s arc in ASOS. What did you think, ser?

Depth

Tyrion was the protagonist of A Clash of Kings. He had the most chapters by far, he was the Hand of the King presiding over the seat of power like Ned before him, and the book built to his last stand at the Battle of Blackwater. Unlike Ned, he made it out of the book (or most of him did, anyway). But you can’t exactly call it a happy ending.

Tyrion’s story in A Storm of Swords is about what it feels like to not be the protagonist anymore. It feels like the second half of the story begun in Clash, the mirror image: we had the rise, and now we have the fall. This chapter grounds that arc in Tyrion’s relationship with his father Tywin, and their showdown is one of the big dramatic pivot points of the series. The only bad thing I can say about this chapter is that it sets the bar so high that the next few Tyrion chapters will have trouble reaching it!

There’s been a larger movement in the ASOIAF fandom, and really culture as a whole, to strip complex characters in fiction of nuance and assign them value on strict binaries of good or bad/hero or villain. In the ASOIAF fandom, the character who stands at the greatest crossroads of these cultural currents is Tyrion Lannister.

But what this chapter does is stand athwart those binaries, asking readers to stop trying to assign Tyrion into a D&D alignment chart. What George wants readers to do is to get past these binaries and look deep into the character of Tyrion Lannister, and, frankly, to look deep into the character of Tywin Lannister too. That said, I’m fairly confident that George doesn’t want readers to leave with Dr. Manhattan’s “I understand without condoning or condemning” mantra regarding these characters. We’re intended to look deep into the complex psychologies and backgrounds of Tyrion and Tywin and respond to it like all great art should make us do. But to get to that devastatingly emotional dialogue scene where we understand who Tyrion and Tywin are, GRRM provides a news dump -- a series of events outside of Tyrion’s purview and control which pushes him towards one of the best conversation scenes in ASOIAF.

• Bronn brings the bad news
  • When we covered Jaime I with Shiloh, she pointed out how his story in this book plays off Tyrion’s in interesting ways. Jaime I opens with him being let out of his cell; Tyrion I opens with the creak of his door opening
  • The Lannister brothers build to a confrontation at the end, when Jaime comes to let Tyrion out of yet another cell, and reveal the terrible truth
  • Here at the beginning, we get a mirror image of that scene. Instead of Jaime, it’s Bronn, and while Jaime will have his own mutilation to share when he frees Tyrion, Bronn immediately makes fun of Tyrion’s wound
  • This sets the pattern for how Tyrion will fit into the new game of thrones in King’s Landing. Everything he did as Hand will be swept under the rug
    • The game changed while I lay rotting in my bed, and no one will tell me the rules.
  • With Tywin back in town, no one has any incentive to support Tyrion. Varys told him that power resides where people believe it resides. In the last book, people believed Tyrion was in charge, so he was! Now no one believes he’s in charge...so he isn’t
  • And with Tyrion’s constant meditation about his mind being his weapon and Varys’ shadow on a wall monologue echoing in the backdrop of Tyrion’s chapters (remember! One part of it was Varys musing about whether knowledge is power!), we’re at the place where Tyrion is in the dark.
  • The darkness is actual and metaphorical in these chambers here with Tyrion alone in the dark and also not knowing what’s transpiring around him.
  • This is one of those spots where I look at Tyrion and see how Tyrion’s love of learning is not one of those love of knowledge for knowledge's sake type of deals.
  • In a Lannister world, knowledge is power, and Tyrion especially used his mind in ACOK to aid his rise to power as Hand of the King.
  • But Tyrion, as he’ll say later, has been kept in the dark and fed shit. He’s lost his power: information that he can turn into power.
  • And to judge by how Tywin treats him later: this was intentional on his father’s part.
  • Tywin will tolerate no rival to his power, and I imagine the idea was that Tywin was consolidating power within the city and isolating Tyrion politically by keeping him in the dark.
  • Tyrion’s arc in ASOS is quite the contrast to the Tyrion Lannister in love with the game of thrones for his own sake back in ACOK.
  • That Tyrion was gravely wounded only aided in Tywin’s efforts to strip his son of all vestitures of his former power.
  • Instead of demonstrating his courage, his wound is a source of mockery. It’s woven into the narrative around Tyrion’s disability: you’re a freak
  • Bronn, by contrast, looks better than ever. His hair is freshly washed and brushed; his belt, boots, and cloak are of much higher quality than before
  • That’s a bad sign for Tyrion! It means someone else is taking care of Bronn, taking care of him better than Tyrion ever did
  • Bronn now fits the image Tyrion was never able to live up to. This is how the winners of the battle want the world to see them
  • The biggest sign of that is the sigil across Bronn’s chest: the flaming chain of the Blackwater, decked out in wildfire green. It’s Ser Bronn now!
  • That’s a perfect symbol for Tyrion’s story in this book. He doesn’t get credit for saving the Lannister cause with that chain. Instead, that image now belongs to Tywin, who gave Bronn the knighthood Tyrion promised him
  • So Tywin has taken his victory away, and he’s also taken another chain: the Hand’s chain that Tyrion will use to strangle Shae, the other lowborn person in his service. Storm is all about literal and figurative chains
  • Bronn’s words send the same message as his appearance: you have been replaced. The power structure you built has collapsed
  • Now we learn that Jacelyn Bywater was killed in the battle--not by Stannis’ men! By his own men, the gold cloaks as they broke and followed Joffrey
  • This resonates across ASOS: from the Night’s Watch mutiny to the Red Wedding, everybody’s betraying everybody else in this book
  • But it has particular significance for Tyrion. He, too, feels betrayed. He wasn’t torn down by Stannis after all, but by his own family. His reaction to Bywater’s death is telling: “another debt to lay at Cersei’s door.” It’s linked in his mind to his wound, all part of the same grievance
  • After all, he said, he warned her what would happen if she pulled Joffrey back. Now Bywater has been replaced by Tywin’s crony Addam Marbrand; Tyrion realizes he’s lost the gold cloaks. What about the clans?
  • He’s lost them, too. Tywin refused to pay them, and the people of the city drove them off. So much for the Lannisters paying their debts. As Tyrion thinks, the clansmen died to hold the city, as he almost did; he’s rejected by both his father and his people, just like the clansmen were
    • Whilst Tyrion lay drugged and dreaming, his own blood had pulled his claws out, one by one.
  • Tyrion is lost in paranoia and alienation, stronger chains than the ones Jaime wears. It’s a result of his isolation. He doesn’t even know what time it is; all he can do is ask who goes there, like the opening line of Hamlet
  • Even seeing Bronn’s shadow makes him shiver; he thinks it’s one of Cersei’s servants come to kill him, like Stannis’ shadow killed Renly
  • He was almost assassinated, and thinks his own sister was responsible. The personal is always political for Tyrion; Bronn brings that home brutally
  • Tyrion wants Alayaya freed now that Joffrey is safe. Bronn says she was set free...shoved out the gate, naked and bleeding, after being whipped
  • We sit up in shock just as Tyrion does, because this is a sudden shift in tone. Politically speaking, it makes sense that Tyrion lost the Watch, and even Bronn. But this? The torture and humiliation of a bystander?
  • There’s no way to sugarcoat this as part of the transition, no way to make it look pretty like Bronn’s fresh haircut and new boots
  • This is cruelty, deliberately over-the-top cruelty, because that’s the political signature of Tywin Lannister...and it’s how he handles family life as well
  • Remember, this is how he took control of House Lannister. After his father Tytos died, Tywin paraded his father’s mistress naked through town
  • He rules his children’s bodies just as ruthlessly, along with those of any women unfortunate enough to cross Tyrion’s path. He uses them as public examples of his power, to get people to believe that power resides with him; he believes that’s more important than the well-being of his victims
  • Tysha found that out; now Alayaya has as well. Tyrion thinks it was Cersei at first, but she learned about the spectacle of fearsome acts from Dad
  • And so did Tyrion. For a moment, all he can process is the horror of it. A sweet girl who was learning to read, who suffered because of him, because he wanted Shae so badly he refused to think of the cost
  • Then he remembers the other side of the coin: his promise to pay back any harm to Alayaya with the same harm done to Tommen
  • Tyrion is sick at the thought of scourging his innocent nephew...but he prepares himself to do it, because if not, then Cersei wins
  • That reveals how much Tyrion has bought into the competitive kill-or-be-killed worldview that animates his father. Even as he’s sickened by the results, he doesn’t really know any other way to operate
  • Tyrion is secretly relieved when it turns out that he’s lost control of Tommen as well. This is a loss of power like the rest, but it means he doesn’t bear direct responsibility; he gets to keep his hands clean
  • Those bloody realities of power are papered over by the glorious image; as Tyrion thinks, after all his careful planning, he was outdone by Renly’s armor, by a dead man, and now the people are praising the Tyrells
    • My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting … I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like?
  • This is such an amazing dynamic that George embeds here into Tyrion I, because let’s face it: this book is framed within the triumph of House Lannister.
  • As we covered last week with Catelyn, the Lannister star waxes as the Stark and Baratheon stars wane given events on the Blackwater and the southern alliance that’s been forged.
  • So at the macro, strategic political level, we are approaching the apex of Lannister power -- that is we’re not even at the point where the Lannister star is shiniest.
  • And still, when you get past that ivory tower (of the hand) and down to the individual person level, the Tyrions and Lysas of the world are miserable - thanks, dad.
  • I think a miserable Tyrion is the exact correct focus here, because god, what an experience it would be to have Cersei gloating here.
  • But the greater dynamic is this really a victory for Tyrion. From Tyrion's perspective, it looks like he lost just about everything: his powerbase, his friends, the credit for the victory and his nose.
  • ASOIAF is not a morality play where good deeds are rewarded and evil deeds punished, and Tyrion is cynical enough to know this.
  • However, what he might not be seeing is that these are the consequences of supporting the bad side, keeping Joffrey in power, delaying Stannis just long enough for Tywin to arrive to claim victory and supplant Tyrion otherwise.
  • This is what working for selfish assholes feels like. Your boss takes credit for the good deeds you do, your friends get fired and your other friend gets promoted away from you.
  • This is why working for Joffrey and his true benefactor Tywin was never going to work out for Tyrion.
  • Victory was always going to be bitter, because that’s what working for the villains of the story does to you.
  • Ultimately, though, like I was saying earlier: this information dump and Tyrion’s emptiness is the catalyst for him to move on. But not really.
• Re-emerging into the world
  • All of this convinces Tyrion that it is past time for him to get the hell out of this room and rejoin the game of thrones. It’s his rebirth, like Jaime; he even has Podrick at his side, later squire to Jaime’s companion Brienne
  • But no pale pink dawn and birdsong for Tyrion! He’s being reborn into a nest of vipers, and while Jaime’s weaker for his time in the Tully dungeons, Tyrion is still so woozy that he can’t dress himself
  • Pus and blood leaks from his wounds. Jaime was drunk, and so is Tyrion, but on dreamwine to numb the pain
  • The first human he meets outside his room is a serving girl who stares at him with wide eyes. As with Bronn, this sets the pattern
  • Tyrion’s very sensitive to lower-class women in particular reacting negatively to his appearance, as we learned back in book one:
    • There was a look the girls got in their eyes sometimes when they first beheld the lordling they'd been hired to pleasure…a look that Tyrion Lannister did not ever care to see again.
  • Now the looks will be even worse than before, as Tyrion realizes. “The dwarf has risen from the dead,” but there’s no joy in it, because “he’s uglier than ever” and the world will deny him dignity on that basis
  • The next challenge is the Kingsguard. This is also how Tyrion’s story began in ACOK: with Mandon Moore guarding the council chamber
  • Then, as now, “there was magic in the name of Lord Tywin Lannister.” But is there magic in Tyrion’s name? Only if Tywin approves of him. Tyrion’s authority derives from Dad, and so does his identity
  • Meryn Trant grumbles and steps aside; Osmund Kettleblack knows how to play his role better. He smiles and inquires after Tyrion’s health, but Tyrion can tell it’s a performance, so it’s no comfort
  • Same with Tywin’s guards: he knows those men, and they know him, but they won’t look at his face for long. Tyrion is more alone than ever
  • Addam Marbrand treats Tyrion more warmly than the rest; he’s like Garlan Tyrell, the kindest member of a team that will nonetheless backstab you
  • Ser Addam, at least, knows what it’s like to have the other lions growling at you. Cersei won’t let him dismiss any gold cloaks; even in victory, she’s as paranoid as Tyrion. They never learned how to be happy from Dad
  • Tywin, meanwhile, is pissed that the gold cloaks still can’t track down his nephew Tyrek, vanished during the riot in book two. This is here to remind the reader about it so it’s not out of nowhere when we meet him again, but it also ties directly into the themes of this chapter
  • Bronn says they should give up the search, but Addam Marbrand says that Tywin is stubborn where is blood is concerned. He will have Tyrek back...alive or dead. That sums up Tywin’s relationship to family
  • He keeps them close, but more as possessions than people. He doesn’t want Tyrek back because he loves him and misses him. He wants Tyrek back because Tyrek is his, and losing Tyrek makes him look weak
  • Getting back Tyrek’s corpse will serve the same purpose as getting him back alive: making Tywin look strong again. That’s all he cares about
  • There’s something compelling about the character of Ser Addam Marbrand. Call this the Micah’s Minor Moment Corner of the chapter.
  • Addam is framed in similar lens as Garlan Tyrell will be framed later (excellent catch, ser!), and we’re sympathetic to Addam Marbrand as a result.
  • He jests with Tyrion, doesn’t take himself too seriously, and hey! He’s not a monster like Amory Lorch or Gregor Clegane! He’s a good guy, right?
  • Well, no. He’s not. Or at least, he’s a dude who’s helping to legitimize an illegitimate regime.
  • If Tywin Lannister’s retinue was all Gregor Cleganes and Amory Lorches, it’d be way, way easy to paint the Lannisters as unmitigated villains.
  • But Addam Marbrand is a knight, a good knight, chivalrous even. And yet, he’s in the service of Tywin Lannister. And there’s no hint that Addam is troubled by his service to the barbarous, war crime of a campaign Tywin inflicted on the Riverlands.
  • In fact, flashing back to AGOT, Ser Addam was one of the voices in Tywin’s post-Green Fork battle council urging Tywin to stay at war with Robb Stark.
  • The point for characters like Addam Marbrand is that they help legitimize the villainy of characters like Tywin.
  • Readers like him, because he seems like a good dude. Would a good dude be serving a monster of a liege lord?
  • In point of fact, very much yes.
  • And here we see Addam carrying out Tywin’s order of having the entire force of gold cloaks out looking for Tyrek’s body rather than securing the city or helping repair the damage from the battle.
  • Perhaps uninteresting, but I think it gives readers a pretty interesting insight into Tywin Lannister and how he governs.
  • He really, genuinely does not give a shit about the basics of how to exercise power on behalf of the people he is supposed to be safeguarding as their ruler.
  • Look, for the record, I do think maybe a missing teenager is worth a search or two, but the entire corps of gold cloaks on the case? Seems excessive!
  • But as you were saying this is Tywin treating his family as possessions, pieces to be moved on the game of thrones.
  • At the same time, I think the search is a statement by Tywin: he can put the entire police force into a search for a family member.
  • In the comms world, he’s communicating that he’s the new sheriff in town, and with a snap of his fingers, he can make the entire police force bend to his will.
  • As he’ll say later about the seventy-seven courses and thousand guests for Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding:
    • "Extravagance has its uses. We must demonstrate the power and wealth of Casterly Rock for all the realm to see."
  • That Tywin can put the entire police force on the case to search for one Lannister is an extravagance -- yet one that demonstrates Tywin’s power.
  • All power vortexes its way down from the top and back up again.
  • Tywin’s stubbornness about family doesn’t prevent him from despising Tyrion and treating him like an outcast
  • And yet, despite being treated so poorly by his father, Tyrion has learned from Tywin. Tyrion also despises weakness; he says so in this chapter
  • He’s trying to overcome his own weaknesses, and his father is about to rip open all of those wounds at once
• Tyrion v. Tywin
  • Good chapter so far, but now it becomes great. This scene expands on the first Tyrion-Tywin scene, back at the crossroads in book one
  • As I said then, their relationship is one of the most dramatically potent elements in the series: it’s complex, but it comes through so clearly
  • Tyrion’s story in this book begins with his father, and ends with him too, as Tyrion delivers George’s thesis statement for their relationship:
    • “I’m you writ small.”
  • Now, that’s not to say that their actions and worldviews are identical. But there’s an uncanny sense that they’re two halves of the same whole, that this is really an argument happening inside one person’s head
  • George builds that dynamic into every detail. When Addam Marbrand says Tywin is in his solar, Tyrion thinks “my solar.” He’s resentful about his position being usurped, but that phrasing reinforces the sense that at some level, Tywin and Tyrion are the same. Tyrion says the Hand chain looks handsome on his father, but thinks it looked better on him
  • And appearances are at the core of the grievances between father and son. Tywin is all about keeping up appearances; Tyrion can’t do that
  • George reintroduces Tywin to us, emphasizing his austere good looks, the flatness of his belly, the impression of sternness and strength
  • That’s how he wants the world to see House Lannister. As Joanna tells Jaime in his dreams, he wanted to make it so no one would laugh at them
  • But everyone laughs at Tyrion. That’s why he was shuttered away in a tiny room in Maegor’s Holdfast while Tywin and the Tyrells took over the city
  • He is inconvenient for the narrative his father is creating: the century of House Lannister, which will begin with Joffrey’s wedding to Margaery
  • For Tywin, this is his life’s work, and he can almost taste it. And here comes Tyrion with his sarcasm and his “ghastly” wound. What’s he doing here? In Drama 101 terms: what does Tyrion want out of this scene?
    • “A little bloody recognition would be a nice start.”
  • He wants his efforts acknowledged. He wants to be a true member of the family, reflecting his sacrifice in the battle. He wants his father’s love. He is refused all of that
  • Something that really stood out to me on this reread is how small Tyrion’s personality seems when he’s standing next to Tywin.
  • Throughout ACOK, Tyrion was always the guy with the smart play, the quick wit, and he wasn’t intimidated by those around him.
  • And yet here, Tyrion is clearly intimidated and his quips don’t land at all.
  • This is such a great touch for how George writes Tyrion. Instead of Tyrion being a constant intellectual threat, he’s reacting, shifting to different stimuli around him.
  • In ACOK, Tyrion was able to get away with snarking his way through the book, because he was the biggest political dog in King’s Landing.
  • But it wasn’t through Tyrion’s own skills that he came into that position of power; it was all framed within the imprimatur of his father Tywin.
  • Tyrion had come to King’s Landing with the express authorization of Tywin. Hell, Tywin seemed to have envisioned Tyrion as acting in Tywin’s stead in King’s Landing.
  • That filtered down into how Tyrion was able to carry himself in King’s Landing.
  • The problem for Tyrion is that he started to believe that his own power base was because of his own actions, personality and policies.
  • In retrospect, Tyrion’s final thoughts from ACOK, Tyrion VII was Tyrion really buying into his own bullshit:
    • It is real, all of it, he thought, the wars, the intrigues, the great bloody game, and me in the center of it . . . me, the dwarf, the monster, the one they scorned and laughed at, but now I hold it all, the power, the city, the girl. This was what I was made for, and gods forgive me, but I do love it . . .
  • While never truly forgetting his father, Tyrion started to believe that the game he played was one of his own making, that he had become powerful in his own right.
  • This chapter displays this as a lie Tyrion told himself. That no one had stood up for Tyrion after his wounding, that few had visited him, that he has two people (Pod and Bronn) left to him shows that the power Tyrion had was mostly borrowed from Tywin.
  • And with that unconscious realization, Tyrion’s jokes don’t land, his witticisms seem forced, his personality shrinks before his father.
  • Even more than Bronn, Tywin belittles Tyrion’s courage, focusing only on his appearance: the wound is ghastly, what were you thinking?
  • As Tyrion points out, Tywin would have nothing but praise for berserker heroism if it was Jaime; Tywin’s rejoinder that Jaime would never remove his helm rings false when we remember the Whispering Wood
  • Tywin reframes Tyrion’s desire for recognition as shallow and foolish:
    • “Mummers and monkeys require applause. For that matter, so did Aerys.”
  • These are cruel comparisons, designed to call attention to Tyrion’s disability: you are more monkey than man, you ought to be a sideshow performer. Throughout the conversation, Tyrion is hyper-aware of his own body, thinking about how his nostrils would flare if he still had any
  • Tywin is trying to intimidate Tyrion, hence his “unblinking” stare; he wants Tyrion to stop standing up for himself, to internalize these insults
  • That will allow Tywin to rewrite recent history. He reduces Tyrion’s efforts to “the part you played,” while claiming that he really turned the tide and that Cersei deserves more credit for getting the wildfire started
  • Tywin gives Littlefinger all the credit for the Tyrell marriage, and even manages to find fault with Tyrion making an alliance with Dorne
  • This is infuriating, for the reader as well as Tyrion. We know Cersei had no real plan for the wildfire, and that the chain was more than a “clever stroke.” Tywin does the mealy-mouthed politician thing where he says “most people seem to feel” that he won the battle. You had nothing to do with that? You’re going to pretend that public opinion is a law of nature?
  • Too true; yet, Tywin is embodying Varys’ shadow on a wall. Power lies where men say it lies.
  • With Tyrion out of action and out of the limelight, Tywin was there to suck up all the oxygen of Westeros and write the narrative of the battle.
  • If we think back to Sansa’s final chapter in ACOK, Tyrion only comes up once -- and that’s in Sansa’s head!
  • Everyone else is rewarded by Tywin or his cronies, but Tyrion’s deeds go unmentioned.
  • At a level, this is the consequence of something you brought up so well in our Tyrion ACOK chapters: that Tyrion is shit for PR.
  • He only manages to capture the zeitgeist once - at the Blackwater - where his men shout “Half-Man! Half-Man!”
  • But there was no concentrated PR effort for Tyrion to rally the smallfolk or nobility to his cause.
  • Instead, Tyrion did a lot of work to keep Joffrey in power -- work that was easily co-opted by Tywin because Tyrion hadn’t put the effort in to capture the love of the people.
  • I mean, I was thinking here: why didn’t Tyrion end up naming the chain after himself? The Imp’s Chain or some such.
  • The only unguarded praise Tywin offers is that Tyrion’s chain was a “clever stroke … Is that what you wanted to hear?” Yes and no! Those are technically words of praise, but the warmth behind them is missing
  • Despite Tywin keeping his distance, George keeps reminding us of all they have in common, especially their penchant for hiring cutthroats
  • Tyrion may have sold Gregor to the Dornish, but as he realized in ACOK, Bronn is his own babykiller on the payroll
  • No matter how much Tyrion and Tywin resent each other, there’s no getting away from each other, and that finally overflows in full
  • Tyrion walks toward the door, and then turns back. George pauses to note that he’ll regret it, letting the audience know something awful is coming
  • Earlier, Tyrion couldn’t quite put into words what he wanted from his father. It was both primal and inchoate, and too painful to broach--too earnest!
  • Now he does. He wants Casterly Rock, because it’s his by rights...which sounds familiar...which character have we heard that from, hmm…
  • Just as Stannis wants the throne as a proxy for the love he never got from his brothers, Tyrion wants the Rock as a proxy for his father’s affection
  • Who knows what Tyrion would actually do as Lord of Casterly Rock. He never really thinks about it! That’s not what this is about--it’s about getting Tywin to stand up before the realm and declare that Tyrion is his son
  • Tywin initially feints, as he’s been doing all scene, pretending that Jaime is the heir. Tyrion points out the obvious: Jaime gave up the Rock when he took the white cloak. Naming Tyrion the heir would be following protocol
  • In fact, George did address the issue of Jaime inheriting in a So Spake Martin right after ASOS was published:
    • Elio Garcia Jr: If the Kingsguard forswear wives or inheritances, how can Jaime Lannister be heir to Casterly Rock?

GRRM: Simple answer: Lord Tywin is in denial. If he admitted that Jaime wasn't heir, he'd have to admit that Tyrion was. And that he has a hard time swallowing.

• Denial is such an interesting word to describe Tywin as many folks like to think of Tywin as this cold, calculating machiavellian type.
• The truth as we see in this chapter and as George talked about before is that Tywin’s belief system is deeply rooted in his emotions.
• And so Tywin stops dodging, and looks his son right in the eye, like looking at his reflection in the mirror. George describes Tywin’s eyes:
  • Lord Tywin's eyes were a pale green flecked with gold, as luminous as they were merciless.
• This grounds us in the moment. Everything goes still. Tyrion’s future depends on the thoughts behind those eyes. And then Tywin speaks:
  • "Casterly Rock," he declared in a flat cold dead tone. And then, "Never."
• That word is like a weapon, as George describes it: huge, sharp, and poisoned, killing the person Tyrion could be
• As Tyrion thinks, he never brought it up all these years, despite how obvious it was that Jaime had given up the Rock
• He must have known that he would be disinherited. That he would never be welcome; that his own family has rejected him
• Even if you weren’t raised by an abusive parent, most of us are familiar with this cold kind of relationship that suddenly goes hot
• So much has been kept just beneath the surface, so many insults have been bitten back, that there’s a hideous catharsis to it all bursting through
• Why do you hate me, Father? Why have you finally given me a chance, only to take it away? Why do you take everything away?
• Because you took her away. You killed your mother to come into the world. It’s a statement so hateful and unjust it still makes me wince
• As if Tyrion had any control over that! As if he didn’t lose out on a mother when Joanna died! Grief twists even the strongest mind, but Tywin owed Tyrion reassurance after that. This is the original sin of their relationship
• You are absolutely correct that Tywin is being incredibly hateful and unjust, and yet … I can’t help but feel this works so well for the character of Tywin Lannister.
• Tywin’s coldness to Tyrion, really to anyone was always present in Tywin, but remember TWOIAF and how Grand Maester Pycelle described Tywin and Joanna’s relationship?
  • "Only Lady Joanna truly knows the man beneath the armor," Grand Maester Pycelle wrote the Citadel, "and all his smiles belong to her and her alone. I do avow that I have even observed her make him laugh, not once, but upon three separate occasions!"
• Granting that Pycelle is the ultimate suck-up, I do think Tywin loved Joanna in his own way and let down his Wall-sized guard around her.
• And Tyrion took Joanna away; stripping Tywin of his emotional core and connection to happiness.
• It is not Tyrion’s fault, not at all. He was just a baby, and Tywin blaming Tyrion for Joanna’s death is supremely evil and unjust.
• Yet it makes character sense for Tywin Lannister to be this way to Tyrion. It is in keeping with who Tywin is.
• And Tyrion’s lifestyle, his choices only prove how “right” Tywin is to hate his son -- in Tywin’s mind anyhow.
• Tywin isn’t wrong when he calls Tyrion devious, disobedient, and spiteful. He absolutely is all of those things! He absolutely is full of envy, lust, and low cunning; we’ve seen his POV, we’ve seen all those things at work
• But Tywin has never made any effort to help Tyrion improve himself, because Tywin prefers to think that Tyrion isn’t his son at all
• That’s why he brought up Aerys earlier: because he wants to believe that he could never make a son like Tyrion. Only the King who belittled him
• Moreover, Tywin blames Tyrion for things for which he is not responsible. Not only does he blame Tyrion for Joanna’s death, but he blames him for his own disability: you’re a “little creature” and it pains me to watch you “waddle about” wearing my proud lion
• For Tywin, Tyrion represents the fear that nothing he does will be good enough, that he’ll never erase his father’s shame, the Mad King’s mockery
• He claims the gods sent Tyrion to teach him humility, but if so, they failed! He claims that lion was proud when it was his father’s sigil, but Tywin famously resented his father...for behaving a lot like Tyrion!
• That’s what’s really going on here. Tytos shamed Tywin by carrying on publicly with his mistress, and so Tywin is determined that Tyrion will not make Casterly Rock his “whorehouse.”
• As Tyrion says, this is like dawn breaking--he understands why Tywin is acting this way. Tywin had Alayaya whipped, just as he had Tysha gangraped, to teach Tyrion a lesson: your body belongs to me
• I can’t hurt you for all the shame you’ve caused me, so I’ll hurt them instead, because for Tywin, sex workers are even more inhuman than Tyrion. I don’t care about their names; I don’t care if they live or die. The next one I find in your bed, I’ll hang
• And yet, Shae shows up in Tywin’s bed instead! It was probably Tywin who had that tunnel into Chataya’s built. Tywin pays for sex like his father before him and his son after him. The only difference is he does it secretly
• So even as Tywin hates his father and son for bringing shame to the image of House Lannister, he probably also resents them for not feeling shame, for being able to do what they want in public
• This is the ultimate connection between father and son. When Tywin looks at Tyrion, he sees who he would be if he didn’t feel the need to repress his own desires. He can’t stand that about himself, so takes it out on Tyrion. Tywin is just so full of shit. As full of shit as it’s possible for a person to be!
• Tyrion was happy in the last book, or as close to happy as he’s been since Tysha. Now Dad is home, and the party is over. Tyrion has been stripped of his position and his protectors. Not only that, but Tyrion has lost the dignity he briefly felt, the sense that for once in his life, he was where he belonged, doing what he was born to do
• Over the course of the book, his bitterness will rise until he snaps, the steady escalation of proxy violence spilling over into patricide
• And I can’t blame him! Tywin has finally made plain that he doesn’t consider Tyrion to be a full person, let alone his son who deserves his love and respect. He will not allow Tyrion to live his life. He has it coming
• Yet killing Tywin will still break Tyrion, because at some level, he’s killing himself. It’s not Tywin who strangles Shae to death, it’s Tyrion. Again: I’m you writ small.
• That is brilliantly-said, ser. You really nailed the dynamic of how Tyrion killing Tywin culminates the character arc of both men yet it sends Tyrion spiraling into the abyss all the same.
• The first act of Tyrion’s ASOIAF arc is one shrouded in tragedy, unhappiness, and it all extends from the puppet strings of Tywin before him.
• Tytos made Tywin miserable and Tywin, in turn, made Tyrion miserable.
• Though Tywin never killed his father the way Tyrion did, he did so metaphorically by shaming Tytos’ mistress, killing the shame his father had brought Tywin.
• But that shame that Tywin thought he had banished came back with Tyrion: a son who became the way he did due to the evil his father inflicted on Tyrion.
• Tyrion’s relationship with sex workers is a natural consequence of how Tywin had Tysha brutally gang-raped and how Tyrion came to believe he was unloveable due to his dwarfism.
• So, in turn, Tywin helped foster a version of his father in Tyrion which led to his father hating him more as Tyrion reminded Tywin of Tytos.
• But the original sin of Tyrion Lannister went far deeper as we’ve been talking about.
• Tyrion “killed” his mother, and Tywin’s smiles had died with Joanna.
• The hatred left behind was focused on Tyrion Lannister, and the end-result was that Tyrion truly killed his father.
• And remember towards the start of the chapter when Tyrion thought he had to inflict the same shit on Tommen as was inflicted on Alayaya?
• At chapter’s end, Tyrion claims that he likes Tommen, that he would never truly harm Tommen.
• And yet, that’s exactly what Tyrion was going to do until Bronn told him that he didn’t have Tommen.
• Shit rolls downhill for House Lannister, generation after generation.
• It's a sad, pathos-laden tragedy, and I think ASOS really brings that entire dynamic home.
• The opening line from Anna Karenia that we’ve quoted before is worth citing here again:
  • All Happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Tyrion is right that Harrenhal means more than an empty title to Littlefinger. He’ll think back on this conversation when Littlefinger uses that title to propose a match to Lysa.

Tyrion promises himself to look into the matter of “Renly’s ghost,” but it’s Jaime who actually gets the truth out of Loras: it was Garlan!

Tywin promises rewards for Tyrion as befits his service. This turns out to be a marriage to Sansa Stark and a claim to Winterfell. This goes very badly.

Theory/Discussion

Where are we with the Red Wedding?

• “A dead enemy is a joy forever,” Tyrion snarks, thinking to himself that his true enemies are on his own side. But without knowing it, he’s also describing his father’s plans: to make a dead enemy out of Robb Stark
• Tywin never takes his big shiny new army into the Riverlands to fight Robb directly. Politically speaking, I’m not sure that he could! The Tyrells are averse to straight fights and are inclined to let the North stay independent. Instead, Tywin turns Robb’s coalition against itself, first using Roose to whittle their numbers before unleashing the Freys
• As he says: some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens. Duskendale is a prime example
• In the last book, we saw Roose send out Robett Glover and Helman Tallhart, pretending his orders came from Robb
• Tyrion’s smart enough to see that this doesn’t make sense. No strategic purpose is served by sending Northmen to the Crownlands
• Even more suspicious is how many details Tywin knows: the names of the Northern commanders, and how many men they have
• There’s really only one person who could’ve told him all that: Roose, with his control of communications from Harrenhal
• This is a purge of Stark loyalists, making sure that Roose and his Frey in-laws outnumber Robb when the knives come out at the Twins
• Nevertheless, as George himself said, Roose keeps his options open all the way. Robett Glover doesn’t make it back from Duskendale in time to reveal Roose’s treachery to Robb
• The Freys haven’t fully committed to anything yet, either. My guess is that Tywin’s letter to the Twins is informing the Freys of the coming battle at Duskendale, reassuring Walder that their side will have greater numbers
• Maybe his letter to Roose is informing him to leave any other Stark loyalists at the rear of his army when he marches, allowing for the Ruby Ford ambush? Maybe the specifics on that come later
• The big question is whether Tywin is in contact with Sybell at this point; more evidence on that to come in later Catelyn and Jaime chapters
• There was plenty of Red Wedding foreshadowing in ACOK: Theon’s nightmares and Dany’s visions as well as Roose’s schemes
• But this is really where it ramps up, and George does such a perfect balancing act of giving us everything we need to figure it out while preventing us from actually doing so
• Tywin doesn’t actually answer Tyrion’s question about his next moves against Robb, and quickly changes the subject
• He’s keeping it hidden from Tyrion and so therefore from us
• Boy would I give a lot to see the letters going back and forth between Tywin and Roose starting in ACOK and coming on into this section of ASOS.
• The interesting thing about where we’re at with the Red Wedding is how Roose was still not committed to it.
• Here’s George talking about it right after ASOS was published in the UK
  • As for Bolton, if you reread all his sections carefully, I think you will see a picture of a man keeping all his options open as long as he could... sniffing the wind, covering his tracks, ready to jump either way... even as late as his supper with Jaime at Harrenhal…
• What GRRM seems to be implying is that while negotiations were at work and Roose was actively sending northmen into harm’s way, he still might not have gone through with the Red Wedding.
• In a certain way, Roose could have been killing off more Stark loyalists -- similar to what we saw at the Green Fork.
• But Tywin is not fully read into Roose Bolton’s thoughts. My guess is that Roose was probably telling Tywin that he was committed without truly being committed to the cause.
• Still, as we’re going to find out in later Tyrion chapters, it’s not as if Tywin was really all-that-committed to Roose Bolton.
• Tywin mentions that he’ll find rewards suitable for Tyrion in this chapter. And as I mentioned earlier: that turns out to be Sansa Stark
• But the reason why Tywin is planning to wed Tyrion to Sansa is so that he can put a Lannister claimant to Winterfell and name Tyrion as Lord Defender of Winterfell.
• And yet this was part of the price for Roose to turn on Robb: him being named Warden of the North and having Ramsay legitimized and named Lord of Winterfell.
• It’s wheels within wheels, and everyone plots betrayal. Even the betrayers plan to betray each other ultimately.
• Welcome to the storm!

Conclusion

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• Join us next week for ASOS Davos I, in which we check in with the losers of the Battle of Blackwater. Who cares about them? They lost!