#tyrion lan's characterization

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What do you think about tyrion?

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for MONTHS!

*Post is Edited*

As a character from the book, not the show? Beyond interesting, as he feels grimy and decadent while also desperate for power/gaining an advantage over others. Liked his sarcasm when it's not trained on less fortunate, lower classes people or women/misogynist. Endlessly entertaining, his pain is compelling when he's vulnerable, and his darkest moments are repulsive. Enhanced and inspired by that pain and need for love or respect, by his pain.

As a person, he and I wouldn't be friends nor would I like or trust him ten feet away from me. I more semi-pity him than admire him.

There is a post/set of reblogs starting with black swallowtail butterfly expressing their hatred for how GRRM wrote out Tysha and her rape, using it mostly to highlight Tyrion and Tyrion himself not really valuing Tysha enough to really ever work at knowing her or looking for her years after she was gang-raped and sent off who knows where. Regarding how Tysha haunts him, I think that he uses sex and power imbalances (layered over that) to self-affirm. Sex and the ways they handled their sexual partners and why it opens both characters' secrets to their own detriment. They both think that they have much more control over those partners than they did or overestimate their own vulnerabilities and weaknesses or inattention to their partners' changing emotions and feelings regarding them, or what elements their partners are exposed to that would turn against them. Like Cersei, who loved/was obsessed with Rhaegar and being his wife, Tyrion is envious and in awe of the Targaryens and their primacy, their freedom of practice, etc. Again, because he has always felt stunted of freedom and love since childhood. Sex and emotion, the intimacy and exchange made within that dynamic, is as much a motivation or weakness for Tyrion as it is for Cersei. While Cersei uses sex and men's desire for her to gain their supposed loyalties and resources--sometimes giving up her sexual agency for her children--and (with Taena) perform "masculine" power, Tyrion uses sex to act at being vulnerable & deny his monstrousness without it turning into dangerous vulnerability.

While Tyrion is far more capable of critical thinking and willing to use it (than Cersei), I think that, much like Cersei, Tyrion depends on his class to offset the societal and family aspersion/indifference against him, wants his family's respect and affection, and with each flout of his importance based on his dwarfism from those he finds attractive (and not just because they are attractive physically but the allure of the access to power [Sansa] elsewhere or to his ego alone [Shae]). Like Cersei thinking that she has Tywin's intelligence as well as his ruthlessness, Tyrion thinks that he has more emotional control than he actually has. Control and mastery over his emotions could help him see the outcomes of some strategies or some people's behaviors to anticipate before making a move.

Both he and Cersei aren't that self-aware and use the external perceptions of them and the need to control them to make excuses for themselves often. This also leads them to not understand themselves in relation to others outside of Tywin and Jaime/the Lannisters-as-made/supported-by-Tywin.

Meanwhile, he has Bronn kill Symon Silver Tongue (a blackmailing singer) and had little reaction to news of his corpse put into a "bowl of brown", which implies forced cannibalism on unsuspecting consumers. Which is very evil, and unnecessary, tactically but speaks to his need to have control over the "smallest" of things that affect the human body itself. (Perhaps the transformation from man to food itself satisfies Tyrion's need to transform himself and change out of the undesirable body he was born with.)

He believed that he surpassed Tywin's cunning and competence, but Tyrion--before killing Tywin -- was still stuck in the Lannister knot of trying to please and gain the love/respect of their father who defined and compressed their sense of worthiness to his own expectations and directions. And he's actually very much like Tywin and Cersei in his disinterest in anything but image or power, over the smallfolk's long-term needs for those themselves. Like most aristocrats. The problem is, again, he thinks he's better than Cersei as a person, that he is inherently better because he is smarter. It partially feeds into and leads to his peculiar blindness to the most obvious things about what makes people outside of his family truly tick, making him think he can go without considering that.

Femicide and intimate partner violence: Shae. An indication of his losing himself in that Lannister-loveless-knot, and we're left off not knowing whether Tyrion could come back from that (as the text encourages us to feel). Personally, once he killed Shae, I thought him irredeemable.

Killing Twyin? Don't care about that, even with kinslaying considered more heinous than killing a woman/a sex worker/a mistress in Westeros. Tywin was one of Tyrion's demons and though patricide is particularly...hard to get through without looking at the actor without some sort of side-eye, I think when one continuously harms their child they open up a slew of consequences they've made for themselves, and they are the ones to scrape and whittle down that bond in the first place.

No, killing your dad isn't "right"...neither is it to force a 13 year old child watch as a group of men rape someone they cared for and force her away from them, make that child feel like they are a blight but then steal the glory of their adulthood accomplishments...etc.

Going back to Shae, even with her betraying him:

(I forget, so anyone could correct me on this) We don't know what pushed Shae to betray Tyrion, but their relationship has never been truly close nor brought into a certain understanding of two people who thought themselves equals, whatever that could have become in a relationship like theirs. From the get-go, Shae seemed more into Tyrion for the protection, money, and being close to the court for exploration and a bit of excitement. Yet Tyrion kinda fools himself into thinking there was a love/intimacy that bonded them while treating her as a more sexual companion who makes him feel good than a true partner. What's interesting about Tyrion is that In that sense, Shae treated him as the "the deal" between them always was -- a means to an end.

*EDIT* Shae had been bouncing from one place Tyrion hid/lead her in KL to another to keep her from Cersei's hands. At one point, she was going to land in them or be killed, yet Tyrion refused to let her go. So it's likely she went to Tywin to really get away from danger, as Cersei wouldn't seek to mess with the very man she is always been both scared of and desperate to "please". *END OF EDIT

(if one argued she was forced) Especially when she's up against someone like Tywin Lannister, who could have had her out and degraded like Tysha (which Tyrion is aware of, so ironically he's keeping her in the same space as the man who destroyed his first love as well as his own sister, and "protecting" her poorly). While past the Westerosi age of majority AND at the age of consent for U.S. society, Shae is also much younger than Tyrion, and even younger than Tywin. With either man, Shae didn't seem to stand much of a chance, and Tyrion took her betrayal as JUST a personal affront, which while I get to a certain extent, I see is also solipsistic.

his killing her was not about justice, but the precursor to the revenge that he plans against every single person who did him wrong (and with how he handled Symon, there's reason to believe that he wouldn't discriminate about who he hurts or kills to get this end...similar to Lady Stoneheart, except scarier to me since Tyrion is trying to utterly destroy even Jaime, who though acted badly by keeping the Tysha 's feelings for Tyrion secret and thus is partially responsible for Tyrion's misery, was also the only one to ever look out for him or try...that shows a particular hypocritical blind anger at the entire world that spells disaster)

*EDIT #1* Going a little back to the element of us not knowing if he will "come back" from him killing his father/Shae, the answer for me is no and unlikely. Because him killing his father slices through the Lannister "knot": the biggest motivation for why Tyrion has always done what he's done, fatherly love, familial regard and respect, power through that acknowledgment, acknowledgment from society THROUGH becoming something like this father which had brought them the prosperity and prestige the Lannisters enjoyed...seeing as the Lannisters became the way they became thru Tywin's actions and connections. Tywin himself, they all learned, only gave them some sort of attention or regard when he felt they would be useful for politics and their house's further aggrandizement. Which is itself only possible through wealth, a great (by skill or fuel or size) army, connections, self-supply through agricultural resources, etc. You know, the feudal way.

Despite his thinking, Tyrion technically doesn't emotionally need his family, while he very much desires their love, because it was never given in the first place. That lack of love, or at least respect, kept him an outsider, which does give him a separate perspective that made him capable of killing his father in the first place.

*END OF EDIT #1*

Despite him thinking he's handling Shae and her feelings well, he's not and actually is led by his need for her to love him, or to continue to act as if she does and bring him some assurance of companionship.

His last act in KL with his family: hurting Jaime by telling him that Cersei fucked many others, lying about killing Joffrey, and silently vowing to revenge himself against even Jaime along with Cersei. Kinslaying is an extreme taboo in Westeros and he'd be person non grata, vulnerable to anyone wishing him harm (another reason why he skips off to Essos). And he doesn't even have access to the Lannister reputation, protection, or wealth. He's on his own, he's burnt every bridge.

Tyrion is a case of the abused turned/turning into a monster. He is also the repackaged/"subverted" "Fool" (not Tarot) and Trickster capable of the greatest evils, selfish, capable of bringing about good (but for selfish or inadvertent ways/reasons), but far from that. He's eternally out of line, he's eternally hungry for "more", he enjoys himself and hates himself simultaneously, he's both blind and observant. Tyrion's a fucked up paradox.

As for show Tyrion, at surface level, a lot more genial and easier to root for. His wit and insecurity combined, plus the whitewashing, makes him a far more charming character than he is in the books, and again, I DO think book!him is charming in a very paradoxical bestial-blasé way.

But he still kills Shae in the show, so show!Tyrion still is not one of my favorites in terms of personhood. That will never be something he can be redeemed for in my eyes. The show allows him that grace where there is none, another point of detrimental whitewashing, especially in his assessment of Dany's supposed evil being seen as actually evil to the audience of seasons 7-8. And the show subsequently makes as if Shae deserved her death, that Tyrion had the right to kill her, that she owed herself to him and his subsequent "claim" over her, etc....because he fooled himself into thinking this was ever a real relationship/a relationship where he had all of the advantages and that his Tywin/Cersei wouldn't cross lines against him.

*EDIT #2* (8/27/23)

And to him, relationships are made up exactly of cold exchanges bc no one ever wanted him for him and they saw that his dwarfism was excuse enough to not try to love him or to drive in how unloveable he was. Because he has learned that he was a disgusting creature and love will likely always be out of his reach/denied to him, he is both pushed towards & seeks out what appear to be low-risk relationships. Aside from the fact that commonborn women are more within his reach than noble women as they are kept away from being virgins--ideally--on their wedding night and thus are very restricted i their overall interactions with any man/boy who aren't their fathers or brothers AND who like Sansa have probably dreamed of a handsome lord or a knight to be their husband, common-born women--esp. sex workers--do not require/cannot ask more of him than money or some protection. Because they do not invest in him emotionally or are unlikely to BUT also seek him out for protection and a living AND can never seemingly hurt him bc they lack the standing & genitals (aristocratic male privilege or just being of a house that could trouble the Lannnisters), he can theoretically slake his thirst for intimacy while maintaining his lover's ability to actually control him. Because he is their cash cow. However, his need for more love, real love, and a love for self eventually pushes him into looking to this person he designated as his new partner. She was his only means of intimacy, he could not feel like he'd get it anywhere else, so he convinced himself (despite his trie not to) that she eventually fell for him.

END of EDIT #2

In terms of character (adding to what's already said), he also made less sense bc of that whitewashing. Tamer and less angry than he should have been, a seemingly better person even though he was supposed to feel righteously dark retribution for Jaime, Tywin, Cersei, and all of King's Landing. Anyone he felt had wronged. Him. This emotion drives him to kill Shae, which gives that motivation seemingly more justice bc we barely get to see Shae's vulnerability & Tyriaomn's actual neglect of her as we should have seen in the books, too, so his progression after that made no sense to me.

ADDITIONALLY

A post by blankwhiteshield HERE really shows us the Lannister siblings and their relationship with love. This is what they conclude about Tyrion:

To Tyrion, love is unachievable, a right that he is not granted. The unlovable son that is viewed as broken from birth.