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Episode 101: A CLASH OF KINGS, TYRION VII: "Kissing Cousins" SHOW NOTES
🕑 Added 2020-02-24 15:00:03 +0000 UTCHello 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 first episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Kissing Cousins: An Analysis of ACOK, Tyrion VII,” in which all the Lannister dysfunction we talked about in Tyrion VI somehow gets even worse.
Emmett intros Jinx
Jinx says hi:
sex worker, story editor, witch and fantasy fangirl who recently moved from Philadelphia to L.A.
Find my other fandom work:
I Know that Nerd with Steven Stark
Podcast Winterfell
Con of Thrones 2019: Clash of Kinks & Sexual Empowerment
Ian Thomas Mallone’s Estradiol Illusions
This episode is brought to you by our Small Council:
- Hand of the King WolfmanZack
- Grand Maester Timbob
- Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
- Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
- Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
- Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
- Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
- Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
- Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
- Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
- Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
- Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
- The High Bearded Priest
- Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
- Lady Xena Valyrian
- Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
- His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
- Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
- Laurence, Prince of Dorne
- Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
- Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
- The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
- Lady Stephanie
- Lord Anonymous
- Lord Carlos
- Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
- The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
- Ser Sourcedelica
- Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
- Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
- Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
- Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems
- Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
- Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
- A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
- Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
- Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
- Seanwell the Slayer
- Lord Adam T
- Lady Alexandra of Tarth
- Thank you folks very much!
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
The High-Bearded Priest, one of our small council members, asks:
What is your funniest line or moment from the ASOI&F series? I have to go with ADWD, Tyrion's last chapter where a slave comments that when Drogon arrived, "People started running, trying to get out of that pit, but I come to see a show and by all the gods of Ghis, I saw one."
I picked two:
"I never win anything," Dolorous Edd complained. "The gods always smiled on Watt, though. When the wildlings knocked him off the Bridge of Skulls, somehow he landed in a nice deep pool of water. How lucky was that, missing all those rocks?"
"Was it a long fall?" Grenn wanted to know. "Did landing in the pool of water save his life?"
"No," said Dolorous Edd. "He was dead already, from that axe in his head. Still, it was pretty lucky, missing the rocks."
"Will you want a pig to ride as well?" asked Kasporio.
"Why, I did not know your wife was in the company," said Tyrion. "That's kind of you to offer her, but I would prefer a horse."
So, thank you to the High Bearded Priest for the question. If you’d like to ask us a question on the NotACast podcast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, early access to every episode, Q&A and bonus episodes! Speaking of those bonus episodes, our next patreon-only episode “Every Rose Has Its Thorns”: our analysis of House Tyrell is coming this week for all of our Poor Fellow and above patrons if you’re listening on our release date and can be, again, found at: patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.
I gotta admit: I might have overdone it with the Siege of Storm’s End stuff, Emmett. As is tradition, I apologize in advance … FOR NOTHING. But, that’s not all we wanted to chat with you all here about before we get into the main episode. We have decided to do something a bit radical as we approach this upcoming part of ACOK. Namely, we’re going to rearrange the published order of ACOK. So, here’s our upcoming schedule following Tyrion VII (and just a note: all dates are general release dates or Poor Fellow patron release dates for our monthly bonus episodes)
- Mar 2: Arya VII
- March 9: Sansa III
- Mar 16: Jon IV/V
- Mar 23: Bran V
- Mar 26: Patreon Ep 26 (User-picked episode)
- Mar 30: Catelyn III (part 1)
- Apr 6: Catelyn III (part 2)
- Apr 13: Catelyn IV (part 1)
- Apr 20: Catelyn IV (part 2)
- Apr 27: Tyrion VIII (Tyrion reacts to Renly's death)
- Apr 30: Patreon Ep #30 (Well, we won’t spoil that for now. Let’s just say it’s been a long-expected patreon episode)
So, yes, we are doing a month of Stannis, er, Catelyn. No, we are self-parodies. We are.
Anyways, we think it’ll be a lot of fun to do ACOK this way. So, BOLO for that.
But enough about our patreon and our schedule (which we’ll remind you about next week), when we last left Tyrion, he had poisoned Cersei, prevented word of the apocalypse from spreading in Westeros and had imprisoned Pycelle for ratting him out to Cersei. Let’s find out what happens to Tyrion Lannister in this synopsis of ACOK, Tyrion VII!
Synopsis
Tyrion wonders aloud to Podrick Payne at why Lancel Lannister has arrived so late in the evening. But even though Tyrion judges it to be midnight, Tyrion will meet with Lancel in his solar.
Does Lancel think to find me drowsy and slow of wit at this hour? he wondered. No, Lancel scarce thinks at all, this is Cersei’s doing. His sister would be disappointed. Even abed, he worked well into the morning-reading by the flickering light of a candle, scrutinizing the reports of Varys’s whisperers, and poring over Littlefinger’s books of accounts until the columns blurred and his eyes ached.
Tyrion splashes water on his face and decides to take a shit. As he squats, Tyrion figures that the best way to unsettle a teenager like Lancel is to make him wait. So, he makes sure he takes an especially long shit. After he finishes browning the chamber pot, Tyrion gets into a bathrobe and musses up his hair to make it look like he was roused from sleep and heads out to meet with Lancel.
Tyrion finds Lancel pacing in front of the fireplace in his finest Lannister apparel - slashed red velvet, black silk, jeweled dagger and a gilded scabbard. Dazzling. Tyrion greets him, teasing him that his visits are too few; but really, why are you here, Lancel? Well, Lancel is here to command Tyrion to release Grand Maester Pycelle. He flashes a piece of paper in Tyrion’s face, telling him that this is the warrant for his release. Tyrion waves it off and pretends that he’s concerned about Cersei’s health after her recent illness. The reality, though, is that Tyrion is a bit upset that the dosage of poison he gave Cersei only put her out of the action for a limited amount of time.
But anyways, now that Lancel is here, would he like to have a drunk, I mean a drink with his favorite cousin to help him sleep? Nope, not in the least. He’s here, because Cersei told him to be here. And he doesn’t need help sleeping. Lancel is a very big boy.
Knighthood had made the boy bolder, Tyrion reflected-that, and the sorry part he had played in murdering King Robert. “Wine does have its dangers.” He smiled as he poured. “As to Grand Maester Pycelle... if my sweet sister is so concerned for him, I would have thought she’d come herself. Instead she sends you. What am I to make of that?”
Well, Tyrion can make fuck-all of it according to Lancel. Just release Grand Maester Pycelle, you annoying asshole. And you’ll have to do it because Cersei is Queen Regent. Even if Tyrion is Hand of the King, he serves the king. The regent rules.
“Perhaps you ought to write that down so I’ll remember it better.” The fire was crackling merrily.
Yes, George. We get it. You like writing Tyrion chapters.
But then Tyrion dismisses Podrick Payne and turns back to Lancel. Is there anything else, kid? Yeah, Ser Jacelyn Bywater defied an order from Cersei, and the queen wants him in jail for treason or else. Tyrion correctly interprets this to mean that Bywater refused the order to release Pycelle. But he’s not intimidated by Lancel. If Lancel wants to threaten Tyrion, he’ll have Shagga come in and kill him with an axe, not a wineskin.
Lancel goes red at this and declares himself a knight.
“So I’ve noted. Tell me-did Cersei have you knighted before or after she took you into her bed?”
The flicker in Lancel’s green eyes was all the admission Tyrion needed. So Varys told it true. Well, no one can ever claim that my sister does not love her family. “What, nothing to say? No more warnings for me, ser?”
Lancel demands that Tyrion withdraw these absolutely untrue and false allegations, but Tyrion threatens Lancel with letting Joffrey know what Tyrion knows. Tyrion is sure that Joffrey will have a thing or two to say about Lancel killing Robert to sex Cersei. Lancel yells that it so wasn’t like that! He only gave Robert the strongwine that Cersei gave to him. He was supposed to obey Cersei in everything. That’s what Tywin told him to do!
“Did he tell you to fuck her too?” Look at him. Not quite so tall, his features not so fine, and his hair is sand instead of spun gold, yet still... even a poor copy of Jaime is sweeter than an empty bed, I suppose. “No, I thought not.”
“I never meant... I only did as I was bid, I...”
“... hated every instant of it, is that what you would have me believe? A high place at court, knighthood, my sister’s legs opening for you at night, oh, yes, it must have been terrible for you.” Tyrion pushed himself to his feet. “Wait here. His Grace will want to hear this.”
Lancel then starts begging for mercy from Tyrion, and please, please, please don’t tell Joffrey. He’ll end it. He’ll leave. He’ll do anything to avoid getting his ass killed. Tyrion tries not to laugh. He doesn’t want Lancel to leave. They can come to an understanding, right? He wants Lancel to stay. He can keep on fucking Cersei and maintaining her trust. And no one will ever, ever know about his misdeeds. All he has to do for Tyrion is become his spy. You think you can do that, Lancel? Absolutely.
Satisfied, Tyrion pushes a wine cup in Lancel’s hand to celebrate their arrangement, and he’ll sweeten the deal. He’ll give up Pycelle -- not entirely unharmed. He lost a few hairs during the interrogation process. As for Ser Jacelyn, well, Lancel will just tell Cersei that Ser Lancel can win Ser Jacelyn over. But there’s one last thing:
“One last thing. With King Robert dead, it would be most embarrassing should his grieving widow suddenly grow great with child.”
“My lord, I... we... the queen has commanded me not to …” His ears had turned Lannister crimson. “I spill my seed on her belly, my lord.”
“A lovely belly, I have no doubt. Moisten it as often as you wish... but see that your dew falls nowhere else. I want no more nephews, is that clear?”
Ser Lancel made a stiff bow and took his leave.
With Lancel gone, Tyrion pities the kid, thinking Lancel doesn’t deserve the shit he and Cersei are putting him through. Tyrion wonders whether Cersei or Jaime will murder Lancel first.
Anyways, Tyrion’s done his due-diligence about feeling a little bad for the upcoming murder of a teenager, and now he wants to leave the Tower of the Hand. He wakes Podrick Payne up and has him summon Bronn and get horses saddled and ready to move out. Bronn arrives shortly thereafter, asking Tyrion who made pissed in his cornflakes. Cersei.
“Cersei, as ever. You’d think I’d be used to the taste by now, but never mind. My gentle sister seems to have mistaken me for Ned Stark.”
“I hear he was taller.”
“Not after Joff took off his head. You ought to have dressed more warmly, the night is chill.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Are all sellswords as clever as you?”
Bronn and Tyrion set out through the dangerous streets of King’s Landing and move down Shadowblack Lane down Aegon’s High Hill and over to Pigrun Alley. The moon peeks in and out from over the rooftops, and Tyrion encounters an old woman dragging a dead cat she probably is going to eat.
Tyrion wonders about the former Hands of the King and how they were just so dumb and so unwilling to engage in being #clever. That was the only way to beat Cersei. Play her own game. And if you don’t do that, ya end up dead - just like Ned and Jon Arryn - and unlike Tyrion Lannister who feels so very alive at all of this.
Tyrion and Bronn arrive at Chataya’s brothel, and Bronn goes to utilize the services of a dark-eyed Dornish girl while Chataya has Tyrion wait for Alayaya to be done with another client. Chataya states that she has to go make the turret room ready for Tyrion, but would he like a glass of wine while he waits. Uh, yeah. Tyrion is a functioning alcoholic. The wine proves to be of a poor vintage, and that’s because Chataya can’t find any good wine these days from the Arbor.
Then Chataya heads out, and Tyrion admires the view as she leaves, wondering about her beliefs of her profession being a bit of a religious, priestess-like situation. Tyrion notices some people looking at him at Chataya’s, remembers how someone attempted to spit on him and ended up hitting Bronn instead. That person no longer had teeth.
“Is milord feeling unloved?” Dancy slid into his lap and nibbled at his ear. “I have a cure for that.”
Smiling, Tyrion shook his head. “You are too beautiful for words, sweetling, but I’ve grown fond of Alayaya’s remedy.”
“You’ve never tried mine. Milord never chooses anyone but ‘Yaya. She’s good but I’m better, don’t you want to see?”
Tyrion says he might try her next time, but not today. But when Dancy points out that Tyrion is in the mood, you know the one, what’s the polite way to say it: the fucking mood, Alayaya comes in and says that Tyrion wants to come with her.
When Alayaya leads Tyrion away, Tyrion asks why Dancy was aggro on Tyrion, Alayaya reports that she made a bet that she could get a lord to choose her, or else, she’ll lose her black pearls to another sex worker: Marei. Tyrion says that maybe he’ll go take Dancy upstairs; so, she won’t lose her pearls, but Alayaya thinks not. And Tyrion knows it to be true. He’s monogamous with Shae in a sort-of fashion. His facebook relationship status reads “It’s complicated.”
They head up the stairs of the turret tower, and Tyrion asks what Alayaya does back in the room while he’s away? She sleeps. Sometimes she reads a book. She’s been learning to read. And then we get a top-10 ASOIAF quote:
“Sleep is good,” he said. “And books are better.”
Then Tyrion kisses her on the cheek and heads down the tunnel. He comes out and finds a piebald gelding, hearing nice voices singing above him.
It was pleasant to think that men still sang, even in the midst of butchery and famine. Remembered notes filled his head, and for a moment he could almost hear Tysha as she’d sung to him half a lifetime ago. He reined up to listen. The tune was wrong, the words too faint to hear. A different song then, and why not? His sweet innocent Tysha had been a lie start to finish, only a whore his brother Jaime had hired to make him a man.
But now Tyrion thinks that he’s free of Tysha. She won’t haunt him any more. Mm hm. All he needs is Shae. Mm hm.
Tyrion finds the manse gates closed and locked. He pounds on the door until a Braavosi daggerman opens the eyehole and admits him. He and the rest of the people guarding Shae had been hand-selected by Varys under Tyrion’s strict orders that they be old, ugly, scarred and especially impotent. Oh, and if they were pedophiles or practitioners of beastiality, all the better? Like, wow, Tyrion. Varys hadn’t found the animal-lovers, but he had put two large gay Ibbenese men to work along with a bunch of ugly mercs. And Shae hadn’t minded. Or … she hadn’t voiced her complaints. Besides, Tyrion was uglier than all of the mercs put before her. Though … maybe she did see his ugliness. Maybe he should put the Moon Brothers or Black Ears to guard her, but then that’d only draw attention to Shae, and she’d be easily identified as the Hand of the King’s concubine.
Tyrion asks one of the Ibbenese guys if Shae is awake, but she’s not. So, Tyrion creeps up to her room and finds Shae sleeping in the nude. He stands in the doorway admiring the sight, wondering how a sex worker can look so clean, sweet and innocent. Nice, Tyrion. Really progressive of ya. He gets a hardon and decides he’s going to disturb her rest. He climbs up to the bed and goes down on her as she sleeps. She moans, Tyrion mounts and one-thrust cums. I’m just the messenger! Stop looking at me.
Shae wakes up and tells Tyrion that she was having this awesome dream, but Tyrion says it’s not a dream. He doesn’t want to pull out of her. In fact, he wishes he could stay inside of her forever and thinks very-non villainously:
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...
And her. And her.
And that is ACOK, Tyrion VII! And now that we’re done. Imagine me beating the “Tyrion is a villain drum”, because boy is this chapter full of Tyrion being both an asshole and a villain! What did you all think of Tyrion in this chapter?
Depth
This feels like the intermission chapter in Tyrion’s story in ACOK. Like Bran IV last week, it’s a smaller and more intimate affair than the political barnburners that preceded it, focusing on a handful of characters instead of hustle and bustle. It’s more stageplay than blockbuster. In context, it feels like a necessary breather before the walls Tyrion is currently keeping at bay start to close in. In Tyrion VIII, he’s reacting to Renly’s death and Stannis’ consolidation of forces at Storm’s End. In Tyrion IX, the city rises in rebellion against him. In Tyrion X, he learns Stannis is coming with fire, blood, and sorcery, and Tyrion is the last defense for a city that hates him. From there, it’s a mad rush to the Battle of Blackwater, where he sets thousands of people on fire and almost dies at the hands of one of his own men. Tyrion VII is where George gathers together the last bits of character work he needs to accomplish before we plunge over the cliff.
Sex workers in this chapter are:
affected by social forces
surprisingly “clean, sweet, innocent, elegant, dignified…”
George really likes writing Tyrion chapters -- or at least he did in ACOK/ASOS, and I think I finally figured out why they’re so much more fun for George. Basically, I think GRRM wrote Tyrion’s chapters and arc the same way I wrote The Cautioner’s Tale. Sorry, Jinx. I know you’ve heard this before, but for you all out there: back in 2009 when I was a young, I started writing TCT as a series of unconnected, character-oriented vignettes: “funny” “real” stories that were very loosely based on some of my own experiences in my early twenties. But then later, I started editing these vignettes into a loose narrative. Then as I got older and hopefully more-rounded about the type of story I was writing, I did a lot of rewriting to focus on the themes. Maybe this was a backasswards way of writing TCT, but that’s how my story got written. If it’s any personal consolation to myself, I think this is sort of how George did Tyrion’s ACOK/ASOS story.
Like, if we’re looking at the two major plot actions of this chapter: Tyrion manipulates Lancel into becoming his spy and Tyrion goes to visit Shae, they’re kinda unconnected! What I mean is that they’re basically vignettes that can be dropped anywhere into the story. These vignettes aren’t super important to the overall story of ACOK (like, Lancel literally does one act of espionage on behalf of Tyrion in the whole of ASOIAF), but more importantly, these two scenes don’t really tie into each other. Sure, there’s the common theme of sex, but they read to me like spots where GRRM wrote character-heavy mini-stories that illuminated the type of person Tyrion is at the mid-point of ACOK. And I think that’s where the real value of Tyrion VII is: showcasing the type of character Tyrion is at this juncture in the story.
- Tyrion and Lancel
- The chapter is split neatly in half between the Lancel and Shae scenes, and while I agree that the connective tissue is not especially strong, I think there’s one theme they have in common in addition to sex: power. Power over other people.
- Lancel opens the chapter with what is supposed to be a power move: showing up in the middle of the night, expecting to find Tyrion asleep. This would throw Tyrion off his game during the subsequent conversation and make him feel vulnerable and threatened by Lancel’s presence. So the theory goes.
- But it doesn’t work. We see right away in this chapter that Lancel’s attempts to wield power over Tyrion are going to fail, because Tyrion is wide awake
- Tyrion’s very first POV chapter opened with him reading through the night instead of sleeping. This is in part because Tyrion really doesn’t like being vulnerable. His mind is his weapon, and so reading makes him feel powerful, in control of his life
- So Lancel’s gambit proves weak, a sign he’s dealing with a more experienced player and is going to wind up on the wrong side of the power dynamic
- Moreover, Tyrion immediately realizes that this isn’t even Lancel’s gambit at all. It’s Cersei’s. Lancel, as usual, is carrying out her sloppy plans for her
- Looking back at Ned’s chapters, we see Cersei and the Lannisters using the lack of sleep as a weapon against Ned
- You kind of wonder whether it was Cersei who urged Robert to be summoned the moment Ned came out of his post-Jaime confrontation coma
- And we have the Lannisters performing their military drills just outside of Ned’s window just prior to Cersei’s coup, thus waking Ned up and making him groggy for the throwdown in the throne room
- So, like you were saying: Cersei had used these tactics before against Ned and probably Jon Arryn before Ned, but with Tyrion, she’s up against an opponent who knows all about her reindeer games.
- All this makes Lancel’s preening arrogance even more ridiculous. What part of what he’s doing bolsters that self-image? He’s not even an effective thug!
- Tyrion plays his young cousin further by forcing him to wait, throwing Lancel off his game where he meant to throw Tyrion off his. I love the little touch of Tyrion tousling his hair to make it look like he had been woken from a sound sleep
- Another telltale Lannister tactic! Recall how Ned found Cersei in Robert’s sick room:
- Cersei Lannister sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband. Her hair was tousled, as if from sleep, but there was nothing sleepy in her eyes.
- Tyrion is just running the Lannister playbook. I guess Lancel never got a copy?
- That shows you how effective Tyrion is as a political thinker. He has this advantage (I was awake), but he doesn’t want to tip his hand. He wants Lancel to think he’s winning, and so overextend himself and leave himself vulnerable
- As you said, Jeff, the plot stakes of this chapter are pretty low. No one cares about Pycelle--neither the characters nor the readers! Tyrion even makes this explicit, noting that Cersei didn’t care enough to come herself, and he releases Pycelle casually once he’s gotten what he really wants: power over Lancel
- Pycelle is a pawn. What really matters is how people like Pycelle or Lancel allow more powerful people like Tyrion and Cersei to tear each other down
- Lancel thinks he’s ascended to that level, but what he doesn’t realize is that despite the Lannister name, despite the queen in his bed, he’s still on Pycelle’s level. He’s still a servant, as Jeff said last time we did a Tyrion chapter
- He believes the Ser in front of his name confers upon him not only respectability but also immunity; as Tyrion thinks, Lancel represents an intersection between the recklessness of youth, the elitism of class and wealth, and the arrogance of beauty--the particular arrogance that seems baked into Lannister beauty
- Tyrion is right that Lancel is sourcing his status to the intersection of those elements
- The Lannister name, the title, the wealth, the class: it’s all conscious attempts to immunize Clan Lannister from the tribulations of the poor, those affected by the war in the Riverlands.
- Coming on the heels of Arya VI, it feels a bit … galling.
- Arya and the rest of the smallfolk had all elements of their individual and communal identity stripped away by Lannister goons with Arya thinking:
- The Lannisters had taken everything: father, friends, home, hope, courage. One had taken Needle, while another had broken her wooden stick sword over his knee.
- But it’s important to emphasize that Tyrion, too, is relying on his title, his famous last name and most importantly his father’s position and reputation to get his way.
- Having just finished watching Season 2 of Succession (So Good. Go watch. Pitch for you ASOIAF people: House Lannister owns a media conglomerate), there’s a character in Season 2 that gets browbeat by his father into becoming his loyal dog, and the constant refrain of his is “My father/My dad/dad would/wouldn’t like that”.
- It becomes so much that people start to comment on how much he says these things, but it has a point in the story -- a similar one to Tyrion’s story at the midpoint in ACOK.
- Tyrion has some power on his own. He’s got Bronn, some sellswords, a gaggle of Mountain Clansmen: all those he by and large got on his own accord.
- But that’s not truly where his power lies: it’s in that people (for the moment) believe that Tyrion is channeling Tywin Lannister.
- Though, he doesn’t have the fabled Lannister beauty that his siblings and cousin possess.
- We also see the wealth-and-beauty arrogance with Cersei and Jaime, though their youth is fleeing, and that’s an important factor for both characters
- The beauty is especially important here because even more than the Ser in front of his name, Lancel clearly believes he’s superior to Tyrion due to his stature
- And while Tyrion takes advantage of Lancel in part to gain himself a spy on Cersei, he’s also doing it to strike back at that sneering dehumanization
- In this same chapter, Tyrion doesn’t want anyone tall or handsome guarding Shae. He will think resentfully of tall handsome men around her in ASOS
- But here we see that jealousy and projection at work inside Tyrion’s own family, which takes on extra dimensions when you think of Lancel as a substitute Jaime
- Jaime is the one able-bodied person from whom Tyrion has never felt the slightest disdain regarding his stature. As such, Tyrion has always felt guilty about feeling jealous of Jaime...yet that doesn’t make the jealousy go away
- So not only is Cersei projecting Jaime onto Lancel, but Tyrion is projecting Jaime onto Lancel too! Cersei gets a totally subservient Jaime who killed Robert for her, Tyrion gets a snottier Jaime upon whom he can safely take out his resentment
- Jaime himself has been noticeably absent from ACOK so far after being a major villainous presence throughout AGOT; he’ll only appear once, in Catelyn VII
- It’s haunting how Tyrion and Cersei are not only forcing Lancel to play Jaime dressup in his absence, but also projecting their issues with Jaime onto him
- Tyrion thinks that all three of them are killing Lancel: Tyrion and Cersei putting their cousin in a position where Cersei or Jaime are guaranteed to kill him. Is Tyrion less guilty for being the one of the three who wouldn’t strike the blow?
- And if Lancel is a substitute Jaime, are we seeing here a buried desire among the siblings to kill Jaime, the golden standard making them all feel inadequate?
- Tyrion can’t live up to Jaime’s image in terms of stature. Cersei can’t live up to Jaime’s image in terms of gender. Jaime can’t even live up to Jaime’s image, and has self-destructive and even suicidal impulses. Do they all want “Jaime” dead?
- Maybe this subconscious feeling is expressed strongest in Jaime and Tyrion’s final published encounter.
- “Cersei is a lying whore, she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know.”
- This becomes Jaime’s refrain throughout AFFC that stands-in for his fraying relationship to Cersei and his family
- But considering that line in the excellent light you’ve shed on it, I’m wondering whether outing Lancel is Tyrion’s twisted attempt to kill a copy of Jaime, a poor copy.
- Upon closer inspection, Tyrion will double-down on Lancel’s status as not the top-tier of Lannisters, contrasting his physical appearance to Jaime:
- Look at him. Not quite so tall, his features not so fine, and his hair is sand instead of spun gold, yet still . . . even a poor copy of Jaime is sweeter than an empty bed, I suppose.
- Side-note: in AFFC, Cersei will view Aurane Waters initially as Rhaegar Targaryen Reborn until she becomes better acquainted with his appearance noting that he didn’t resemble Rhaegar at all. Character family parallels: I’m lovin’ it.
- But beyond the skin-deep similarities and dissimilarities between all of the Lannisters in King’s Landing, it’s dysfunction at every level, and they all bleed red blood from the daggers they backstab each other with. It’s a metaphor … for now.
- This is how House Lannister operates: as a blood-soaked funhouse mirror, every generation crushing down on the rest like a pile of gold. No glory, no exit.
- Tyrion takes advantage of how Cersei has already taken advantage of Lancel. Once he helped kill Robert, Lancel made himself vulnerable to any schemer who was aware of that; he’s walking around with a “blackmail me” sign on his back
- But in his arrogance and his attachment to the queen, Lancel thinks himself immune to the consequences. He quickly learns better
- Tyrion teases the subject of Robert’s death at first by commenting that “wine has his dangers,” a clue as to how he intends to take apart Lancel
- Lancel’s sense of immunity is rooted in Cersei’s protection, but as he himself says, Pycelle also thought he enjoyed that protection, and now look at him
- How ironic that Cersei dismissed Ned’s paper shield yet now relies on the technicality that the Regent outranks the Hand
- Tyrion’s power as Hand comes not solely from his position, but how he builds on his position--what he does after the title gets him in the door
- Lancel, by contrast, thinks the Ser in front of his name and the Queen Regent in front of Cersei’s automatically gives them power over Tyrion
- When Tyrion continues to poke and prod him regardless, Lancel moves to a threat of force, falling back on his knighthood and physical advantage over Tyrion
- But Tyrion has Shagga, who is no knight and who doesn’t fit the Lannister beauty standard any more than Tyrion, but is strong enough to counter Lancel’s threat
- Plus, Tyrion notes, he’ll kill with an axe, not a wineskin; I love this line, because at the moment Tyrion reveals that he knows Lancel committed regicide, he’s also rubbing it in the young man’s face how cowardly and unchivalrous he’s been
- Lancel desperately tries to maintain his image one last time, but then Tyrion drops the bomb: he threatens to tell Joffrey that Lancel killed Robert
- As I’ve been arguing in these Tyrion chapters, his tortured relationship to Joffrey gets at the heart of his inability to “do justice” as he promised he would as Hand
- Even if Tyrion was being less villainous in ACOK, his power would still derive from this cackling little sadist who seems like he’s only getting worse with age
- There’s really no way around this for Tyrion. If he directly challenges Joffrey (as he does during the riot and when Joffrey orders Sansa publicly beaten), he makes an enemy out of the king. If he distracts Joffrey like he did with the crossbow, he’s just kicking the can down the road
- The only positive use the Hand can seem to make of his King is as a threat, a boogeyman he dangles in front of Lancel to force him to comply
- But that just proves my point: at the end of the day, Tyrion’s power over other people derives from a king who takes pleasure only in inflicting pain
- Tyrion was never actually going to give Lancel over to Joffrey’s tender mercies, but the threat accidentally exposes how corrupted Tyrion’s power really is
- And the threat is enough to get Lancel to collapse. All at once, the image he’s trying to maintain falls apart, and he’s a kid again, begging for his life
- Same thing happened with Loras at the melee in Renly’s camp. Catelyn saw the shining Knight of Flowers give way to a bleeding bewildered boy
- All these identities, these titles, they’re costumes we wear like armor. When Death pierces those costumes with its iron gaze, we’re all just scared kids again
- Tyrion pauses just a moment to dwell on this, the trap closing in around his cousin; this regret is something Cersei will never experience
- But it doesn’t change Tyrion’s actions. Being the kindest viper is nice and all, but it doesn’t mean all that much to the person stepping in the snakepit
- And, because this is the “Tyrion is a supervillain” of podcasts, I should note that despite Lancel not being very sympathetic -- by all accounts, he keeps faith with Tyrion and doesn’t betray him.
- But after Jaime reveals the truth about Tysha, Tyrion tosses aside the arrangement he and Lancel made back in ACOK, Tyrion VII, because, yes, the man breaks, but more than that: he does it because he can and because Lancel is the lesser Lannister, and it’s the only outlet that Tyrion can get blood vengeance on Jaime … for now.
- The nicest viper only waits to strike and kill you. But you still end up dead in the end.
- Tyrion and Shae
- George offers several motivations for Tyrion to manage the transition between the Lancel and Shae scenes. On the surface, he’s thrown off by Cersei moving against him (piss in his soup, as Bronn says) and wants the comfort of sex. But is that true? He managed Lancel’s intrusion quite handily. He doesn’t seem shaken!
- Tyrion’s thoughts give us a second layer of motivation: he’s turned on by his own effective use of power, how much awesomer it makes him than his predecessors
- This is one of the moments you see most clearly how George is comparing and contrasting Ned’s arc in book one with Tyrion’s arc in book two:
- Tyrion isn’t nearly as insightful here as he thinks. Ned and Jon Arryn left themselves open to Littlefinger more than Cersei--the latter is a pretty sloppy planner, as Tyrion himself just demonstrated by easily co-opting Lancel!
- Moreover, both Ned and Jon Arryn had their own conspiracies in the works, centered around Stannis as the backup heir to replace Cersei’s children
- Their problem was less being “too noble to shit” and unwilling to play the game than it was gambling in the wrong direction, missing the hidden knife at their back
- So Tyrion is confining his predecessors’ mistakes to the aspects of themselves he knows he does not possess, ignoring the blind spots they have in common
- The irony is that while Tyrion tells himself he’s learned from Ned’s mistakes (and he has in some ways, like taking charge of the gold cloaks and getting rid of the red cloaks), his arc in this book traces Ned’s in the previous book beat for beat
- Tyrion’s ninth chapter is about a throwdown in the streets of King’s Landing, just like Ned’s ninth chapter, so Tyrion can’t hide from the anarchy he glimpses
- Tyrion’s twelfth chapter is about his fateful throwdown with Cersei, just like Ned’s twelfth chapter, so Tyrion is not as safe from her as he would like to think
- Tyrion’s fourteenth chapter is about a betrayal during his last stand, just like Ned’s fourteenth chapter. Tyrion doesn’t see it coming any more than Ned did.
- And in both cases, they get a final fifteenth chapter, an epilogue. They hover on the edge of death and dream feverishly of the decay of all they ever fought for
- The other irony is that Tyrion is making the same mistakes Ned Stark did in trusting Littlefinger
- In the next Tyrion chapter, Tyrion will entrust Littlefinger with negotiating a marriage alliance with the Tyrells, despite his misgivings.
- And what does LF do? Immediately goes to work to secretly undermine the Lannisters -- we’ll get to all that in Tyrion VIII
- But sort-of unlike Ned and especially unlike Jon Arryn, Tyrion knows that Littlefinger is a bad player and, I haven’t forgotten but maybe Tyrion has, HE FRAMED TYRION FOR THE ATTEMPT ON BRAN’S LIFE!
- Tyrion muses several times in ACOK about how he should mount Littlefinger’s head on a spike, but he frustratingly decides that he’s too essential to kill -- an opinion that Littlefinger does not share about Tyrion.
- So pipe down, Tyrion, you aren’t the hot shit you think you are in ACOK.
- Tyrion survives his book where Ned didn’t, of course. But when he wakes up in book three, it’s only to learn he wasn’t master of his domain after all
- If ACOK is the story of Tyrion’s gleeful rise to power, ASOS is about his smoldering collapse into nothing, watching everyone around him alternately undo and take credit for his work, smiling and patting his head the entire time
- They all openly turn on him after the Purple Wedding, after which he snaps and murders his father and his lover. As he thinks, he arrived in the capital in splendor with an honor guard; he flees the city in the night like a rat
- So in the end, did he really master the game unlike the fool Ned Stark? Or did he just dance on the knife’s edge a little longer, with more cleverness and flair?
- The difference between the two Hands is less the outcome than their attitudes towards power, because Ned’s attitude towards power shapes his legacy, as we see not only with his children but his former vassals come ADWD
- Tyrion’s attitude towards power is one of guilty hunger. He described Littlefinger as a boy reaching for honey despite knowing the bees will sting him earlier in the book, and he could’ve been looking in a mirror and describing himself
- He loves it all, but he knows he shouldn’t. He delights in taking down Lancel, both because he loves the feeling of his own brain at work and because Lancel is tall and strong and a total dick about it, but he also feels bad about Lancel’s fate
- This, I think, is the main reason he rode out to see Shae tonight. This conflict is building inside him and he needs release. He needs a context in which his authority feels right, sweet, welcomed, adored, so he can quiet his conscience
- Tyrion seeks sex as a way of silencing everything else, every nagging voice of doubt in his head, every external pressure telling him he’s small, stunted, impossible to love. It’s his way of trying to get back to the one time he was happy: in a modest cottage with his wife. Their names went together.
- But only their first names. It’s the last name, the name of Lannister, that broke them apart, and he wants to bury it in sex with Shae...but the name of Lannister is also what gives him the power he craves just as much as he craves sex
- There’s no way out of this tangled web. Tyrion’s escape valves are tied right back into his pain, so he carries that pain with him everywhere until it explodes
- For now, though, Tyrion papers over that pain with feeling powerful
- 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.
- I always go back to Tyrion telling Jon to wear his insults like armor and how Tyrion never takes his own advice to heart.
- When Tyrion talks about being “the dwarf, the monster, the one they scorn and laugh at”, he’s saying that he doesn’t have to armor himself with those identities. He’s superseded such things. He’s the Hand of the King. A Lannister, goddammit.
- He’s embraced Varys’ conception of power as a shadow on a wall; so, he’ll take on that mirage for his identity, despite knowing the public personal building against him.
- But it strikes me how Tyrion is framing these shadows. Power, war, intrigue, games: power for what? Just or unjust war? Intrigue for what? And a bloody game to top it off.
- Renly-like, the substance for Tyrion just isn’t there beyond propping up a fucking monster of a king backed by assholes for a family.
- Loving this game for how fuckin’ awesome it makes Tyrion feel is a far, fuckin’ cry from the start of Tyrion’s arc in ACOK:
- "So what will you do, m'lord, now that you're the Hand of the King?" Shae asked him as he cupped that warm sweet flesh.
"Something Cersei will never expect," Tyrion murmured softly against her slender neck. "I'll do . . . justice." - Justice is a fine word. It stirs people’s conscience. It feels resolute and an ideal worth aiming at in theory.
- In practice, though, justice is hard -- as Ned Stark discovered in his Hand of the King tenure.
- Instead, the temptation is to embrace the game, the power. That sexual component of it which, Emmett, you captured so well, entices Tyrion, and he falls to it.
- And similar to how GRRM in ADWD writes war as having a stronger appeal for Daenerys Targaryen than peace (even showing how much more sexually appealing war is over peace); so, too, does GRRM do similar with Tyrion, symbolizing the allure of power for Tyrion in post-coitus with Shae.
- But like all temptations that pull our heroes off the true path, the good times are only temporary, and the culmination for Tyrion is that all the things he loves about the game are violently ripped away from him
- Tywin will take Tyrion’s position away from him at the end of ACOK
- Ser Jacelyn Bywater will reveal the truth about the city’s regard for Tyrion after the riot, and the nobility of the city will demand his blood and several nobles will perjure themselves to achieve that end.
- Shae will “betray” Tyrion for Tywin and the promise of gold and jewels from Cersei.
- And when nothing of the shadows or armor remains, Tyrion will embrace a nihilism which sends him spiraling into depression, alcoholism, murder, rape and suicidal ideation. .
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
Tyrion promises Lancel that if he holds faith with him that he’ll reward Lancel with a lordship. And, though Lancel won’t receive his lordship because of what he does for Tyrion, he ends up becoming a lord in ASOS when Lancel is rewarded with the Darry lordship -- though he later gives it up to join the Warrior’s Son after Cersei allows the Faith to rearm as the Faith Militant.
Tyrion muses about who will kill Lancel, thinking The only question would be whether Jaime cut [Lancel] down in a jealous rage, or Cersei murdered him first to keep Jaime from finding out. Tyrion's silver was on Cersei. One of the theories (the one I favor) for the Faith’s Champion in Cersei’s upcoming Trial by Battle is none other than Lancel Lannister. And though, GRRM probably didn’t have Cersei’s Trial by Battle in mind back when he was writing ACOK, I think he always knew that Cersei would kill Lancel -- albeit in TWOW through Ser Robert Strong acting as her vessel and champion in her Trial by Battle.
Riot Watch! Tyrion watches an old woman dragging a dead cat away to eat. Yep. It’s gotten so bad, they’re getting to Stannis-levels of starvation in King’s Landing. And also, there’s no good wine coming in from the Arbor (because Renly is starving King’s Landing out, you guys, c’mon) Just two Tyrion chapters to go before it all goes apeshit!
Later in ACOK, Shae will tease and seduce Tyrion in an attempt to prevent her being restationed to the Red Keep Kitchens as a kitchen wench, and Tyrion will get annoyed with Shae, thinking back to Dancy: The way she was acting reminded him of Dancy, who had tried so hard to win her wager.
Theory/Discussion
What do we make of the relationship between Tyrion and sex workers/Shae and the depiction of sex work in ASOIAF in general?
The divine right of kings simplifies power by declaring that certain people are born important and worthy of rule. In order for this to be true, there must be people who are born insignificant who are invariably, by design, harmed in order to protect those above them in the social hierarchy.
Many people understand this same concept in the context of resources: rich people like the Lannisters are wealthy at the literal expense of the smallfolk. Even though it doesn’t have to, this applies to violence too.
What happens to “empowered” sex workers?
Individuals can empowered financially but we have to recognize the difference between that and power.
Chataya is the owner of the most “upscale” brothel in King’s Landing and she’s powerful in terms of finances and wielding secrets, but even she cannot protect her daughter Alayaya from being publicly whipped on the orders of Tywin Lannister.
Note also that Alayaya, a Black woman, is punished for sex work she didn’t even do, and suffers in the place of a lighter-skinned sex worker, Shae, who is able to successfully pass as a handmaiden in the Red Keep. This is another example of Tyrion choosing to put a sex worker in danger and it ending in violence.
Shameless plug of my Con of Thrones panel
Where Wh*res Go: Sex Workers in Westeros & Beyond
In George’s world, sex workers are never the POV and only sometimes named... yet they are central to critical storylines like Baelish’s rise, Tywin’s fall, and Tyrion’s dark turn to villainy. How do geography, ethnicity, and class structures shape these characters’ experiences of life and death? Let’s finally consider the cultural impacts of portraying brutal violence against sex workers on the biggest TV show of all time.
This event will include discussions of sex & sexual violence.
Conclusion
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