3121

Exactly my feeling with Tywin, and it’s part of what I like about the character. Tywin Lannister, Reason subscriber.

3122

An awesome violin cover of the “Game of Thrones” theme song.

3123

I felt that Tyrion came across as quite savvy in CoK (almost too much so) only to have his relationship with Tywin (e.g. Tywin blaming Tyrion for “killing” his wife) revealed as his Achilles heel. I certainly didn’t feel that he could have done much better with Cersei. She and Joffrey are powderkegs that he only barely manages to keep from exploding. Both his wounding in CoK and the poisoning in SoS have far more to with bad luck, and having few to no good options, than him making bad choices based on spite.

There’s even a scene in CoK where Cersei is briefly kind to Tyrion and it’s clear that he actually would love to have a good relationship with her. However she’s still the brat who twisted his nuts when he was a kid and there’s not really much he can do to keep her happy without handing power over to crazy people.

P.s. And there’s definitely more to Tywin’s treatment of Tyrion than practicality. As mentioned, he blames Tyrion for his wife’s death (his wife being the one thing that actually seems to have made him happy) and the whole thing with Tysha (and later Shae) is far too vindictive to be explained as just a life lesson.

3124

It’s indicative of Tywin’s psychopathic detachment from his own hypocrisy. The key twist was Shae in his bed: you can bet that similar “depraved” cravings (by his aristocratic morals) have been a pattern throughout his life, so instead of self-flagellating he’s taken it out on Tyrion. There’s a lot that’s left opaque about Tyrion’s birth, whether you buy the conspiracy theories about him being a Targaryen and the mother’s death actually being a murder at Tywin’s hand or far tamer things about just how far off the deep end his father went at that point. I kind of hope that it’s a thread Martin intended to resolve a lot earlier but has set aside and left vague since Tyrion became such a pivotal figure as he progressed.

3125

This. Tywin is a brute and a bully, albeit an extremely competent one. Tyrion’s psychological wounding at the hands of his father is consistently too much for Tyrion to cope with, until he puts an end to Tywin once and for all.

In some ways you can look at Tyrion’s murder of his own father as one of the great humanistic acts of the book. Tywin is a brutal monster. It’s arguable that Tyrion is doing a pretty good thing by taking him out.

3126

Well, and therein lies the Machiavellian (in its proper form!) calculus at the heart of ASoIaF. Tywin is a right bastard, of that there is no question. What I find interesting is that in terms of the welfare of the realm, there is little doubt by my reckoning that whatever leadership keeps him as Hand is among the best options available for peace. That is, the guy who specifically unleashes monsters like Clegane and Amory Lorch on the smallfolk could also be their best bet if others stopped standing in his way*.

The other alternative that was on the table was, of course, Renly, who Martin went out of his way to cast as a tragic sort of JFK figure (relative to the myth of JFK, not the reality), but we all know how that turned out. Everyone else seems too much a mixture of incompetence with their good attributes, or just outright shameless evil.

So in the same way that Tyrion accomplished a tremendous deed in terms of a personal, individual level of virtue, it’s arguable that he’s also further doomed the realm and removed hope of a period of stability before winter hits by leaving it to his sister. At a certain point, you have to stop dealing with people like Tywin and cut them out of your polity if you want to move to a more humane conception of good government, but by medieval-Renaissance standards Tywin was a peerless example of virtu and fortuna. As always, Martin leaves the attentive reader nothing but difficult choices.

*I’m aware of the monstrous implications of that, please don’t mistake this as my general means of assessing leadership outside of a dramatic arc in a fantasy book where interesting > good.

3127

I used Tywin as the selling point of the whole series to a classicist friend of mine who liked Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

3128

Pffft. Tywin is an amateur. Sulla would have taken a vacation to Pentos and then, while undercover, assassinated the Dothroki king, fathered 10 bastards, invested Veys Dothrok and sailed back to the Seven Kingdoms with a fleet of ships full of slaves, crucified every 10th person in the Iron Islands just to deprive them of men of fighting age, and then confiscated the property of the Lannisters and the Starks, installed a rule-bound council who wouldn’t dare shit without making sure it was legal, and then retired to an island off the coast with an army of loyal boy-whores.

Sulla’s life makes any fantasy novel you can think of look conservative and boring.

3129

Also, he’d have no nose.

3130

I have no issue with Tyrion’s paranoia after the battle and the return of his father and his very clear view of just how crazed Cersei and Joff are. An opinion shared by everyone including Dad, Kevin, and Joff. Don’t forget everyone connecting up that Joff was the one with the murderous plans for Bran just as a way to show he is a bully and a player.

I only hated he let Jaime believe he killed Joff, even though very provoked, Jaime just came clean and set you free. And Dad was the one whose plan it was, not Jaime

Dammit… Jaime apologist… Yikes!

3131

Jaime wasn’t giving Tyrion much to work with there.

3132

Well, you’d think all that talk about being a giant of Lannister would encourage him to be the bigger man.

3133

He’ll be here all week everybody.

3134

Extremely awesome.

3135

Try the veal!

3136

I don’t want to turn this into P&R but arguing that Tywin is better for the realm reminds me of the argument that Egypt was better under Mubarek because at least it was stable.

I don’t think that GRRM is really celebrating Machiavellian nature as much as you make out. For one I think it is clear, mostly, that the ends do not justify the means. It’s not like anyone knows that a once in millennia type threat looms over the realm so it’s unfair to judge actions with respect to that.

Furthermore, while the Lannisters are good schemers it shouldn’t be understated how lucky they are. Unplanned events (Renly’s death, Edmure’s defense, Robb’s screwing around, Balon Greyjoy’s death, etc) consistently conspire to aid the Lannisters. If a Stark does something stupid they’ll likely die soon but key Lannisters are far more likely to lose a body part and somehow carry through. To credit Tywin/Tyrion’s Machiavellian prowess with the Lannister’s success gives them far too much credit. Renly was well on his way to winning before he basically got Deus Ex’ed out of the story.

3137

Read Feast a little more closely, Robb’s screwing around wasn’t unplanned. There’s some hints there between Jeyne’s mom and Jaime toward the end of the book.

3138

What I like about your analogy is how you probably meant it as a criticism, but it isn’t. Mubaraks are only one piece of the puzzle, and indeed his failure to get out of the way when it was clear his nation was ready for a democratic/republican future actually would earn him a great deal of scorn from a modern day Machiavellian.

I don’t think that GRRM is really celebrating Machiavellian nature as much as you make out. For one I think it is clear, mostly, that the ends do not justify the means. It’s not like anyone knows that a once in millennia type threat looms over the realm so it’s unfair to judge actions with respect to that.

For another thing, the Machiavellian nature you are alluding to (ends justify the means", synonym for sinister manipulation) is the modern term made popular originally as a nationalistic slur in English politics and later by popularized versions of the psychology concept. Neither encompasses the complex nature of Machiavelli’s epistemology and historical vision. That’s why I specifically referenced its original meaning. It’s not about celebrating one way or another, any more than Machiavelli was “celebrating” people doing nasty things when he simply acknowledged and provided case studies that not all nasty things were created equal in terms of how well they serve the interests of those who would rule. As with Machiavelli, we have the benefit of some degree of omniscience over our subjects, so it’s directly relevant to criticize actions on the basis of large external threats that are known and warned about but ignored in favor of localized squabbling (as with the French in Machiavelli’s day and the Winter itself not to mention the many warnings they laugh at from the wall).

One of Machiavelli’s favorite examples was Duke Valentino, as he calls him, and this is while recognizing that for all of his successes a few key strategic errors ultimately cost him his shot at dominance and forced him into exile. This idea of a great man bearing little resemblance to a good one on a personal level is not, in Machiavelli’s rendition, an endorsement of cruelty and evil. In fact, his goal (hyper-summarized) was to provide an evidence-based analysis of political decisionmaking in order to provide the least evil prince-ship possible as a route to republicanism. That’s why it’s a shame that only pithy quotes taken out of context from the Prince are the popular version of his legacy, when it’s really a minor work in comparison to his Essays on Livy and the Roman Republic.

Furthermore, while the Lannisters are good schemers it shouldn’t be understated how lucky they are. Unplanned events (Renly’s death, Edmure’s defense, Robb’s screwing around, Balon Greyjoy’s death, etc) consistently conspire to aid the Lannisters. If a Stark does something stupid they’ll likely die soon but key Lannisters are far more likely to lose a body part and somehow carry through. To credit Tywin/Tyrion’s Machiavellian prowess with the Lannister’s success gives them far too much credit. Renly was well on his way to winning before he basically got Deus Ex’ed out of the story.

Yeah, that’s why fully one half of the Machiavellian recipe for successful leadership in history is Fortuna, which is part luck and part the ability to capitalize on luck. When I said Tywin Lannister embodies it, I don’t just mean the bitter old man on his way to death in a privy, I mean the sum total of how he is characterized in the book including his ascendance during the Targaryen times and his survival and triumph at minimal cost in the coup. As with Valentino, he fails in the end and it’s quite clear that his legacy is in great peril (amusingly, there’s also a huge impending role for poor judgment with regard to ecclesiastical influence and power thanks to Cersei’s bumbling).

The Starks get plenty of random acts of fate thrown in their laps (stumbling across Tyrion, Renly’s offer of aid prior to Ned’s capture, getting ahold of an invaluable piece of information in Joffrey’s birthright, convincing the late lord Frey to ally on the basis of the thinnest of levers, etc). But they don’t capitalize on them, are more concerned with some ever-shifting target of personal honor than the utility of an action, and so on. That contrast is not some accidental vendetta of Martin’s against the Northerners, IMO.

Indeed. Although I’m curious to see how that sorts out in the end in terms of who actually planned what.

3139

Yeah, I was going to say: Tywin arranged that whole thing. It was strongly implied in ASOS that he was behind the Westerlings’ actions, and more or less confirmed in AFFC. Although there is speculation that Jeyne is true to Robb, pregnant with his child, and was spirited away by the Blackfish.

3140

You’re right about Robb but still wrong overall. Referencing “fortuna” and giving a history lesson on Machiavelli isn’t enough to handwave away the half dozen or so unplanned events that have to come together for the Lannisters to keep power. Even given their plotting, it’s a total fucking miracle that they pull things off involving more than one literal moments of deus ex machina.

Nor does your comparison of the Stark’s luck really hold up to scrutiny. Seveql things you mention hav nothing to do with luck and, except for Tyrion killing him on the toilet, almost every single thing that Tywin needs to happen does, some of it planned but the majority of it simply by happenstance.

I understand where you are coming from and why this read seems attractive but IMO it tries way too hard to wrap things up neatly into a nice metaphor. My read of Martin is simply that he is portraying politics in a more realistic fashion where lots of shit goes wrong and making the “right” choice (defined as morally right or amorally right) often isn’t nearly enough. Things are far more chaotic and arbitrary than this read of Tywin makes them out to be. What makes Martin so good is that anytime you think you can peg a character as a certain stereotype (e.g. Machiavellian) you’re probably wrong.