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Tyrion hatred


Brightstar_

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I like Tyrion even though he has been going down a darker path.

However he is not hated, he's actually one of the most popular characters on the forum, I've seen two polls done here and he always finished in the top 3.

There is polarizing and there is downright hated.

The polarizing characters are the likes of Dany, Sansa, Cat, Jaime, Tyrion, and Stannis. All of them have ardent fans and haters.

The real hated characters are the likes of Joffrey, Randyll, High Sparow, Janos Slynt, Walder Frey....

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OP, you have a point in thinking Tyrion is not the most popular character on this forum, or is very often disregarded as a potential 'winner' in the many theories published here, despite the many clues (red herrings or not) pointing at him being a dragon, having a great destiny or just being the best potential political ruler.


But there are a few believers in his worth, and I am one of them. Below are the links to two posts I wrote on him - even if you disagree with my theories you may find out who the haters and supporters are just by scrolling down the threads.


http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/97382-tyrions-paternity-re-visited/


http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/102787-aerys-spurned-cersei-because-of-tyrion/

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There is polarizing and there is downright hated.

The polarizing characters are the likes of Dany, Sansa, Cat, Jaime, Tyrion, and Stannis. All of them have ardent fans and haters.

The real hated characters are the likes of Joffrey, Randyll, High Sparow, Janos Slynt, Walder Frey....

Thats true.

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I think Tyrion has a lot of fans, but haters are always louder then lovers.

I always felt the Tyrion hate sprung from people who just didn't like that he was kinda a dick when it came to speaking with people and treating people. He's a smart@ss. He's blunt. He's the opposite of polite and cordial.

I never knew there was this rape and forced marriage thing going on. Arranged marriages are the norm in Westeros. I don't think that necessarily makes them right but it makes it easier to sympathize with.

..and I never knew there was this "don't distinguish between arranged marriages and forced ones involving a prisoner"-thing going on..

I had no idea that Tyrion raped or molested Sansa. As far as I know Tyrion was rather gallant by not raping or molesting Sansa. But that draws one into the argument where some believe that not raping someone doesn't make you a good person.

wth?

If he constantly underestimated others, I don't think he'd have made as good a Hand as he did now don't you agree? If anything, Tyrion is very good at reading other people.

right! I am saying when he is self-assured or when he does underestimate people he is usually right about it.

Jory Cassel, your example of him underestimating Catelyn is a good example of him being wrong, but it doesn't happen too often.

Considering he was outplayed by the very same people he thought he himself was playing, not really.

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I don't care how good or bad Tyrion is in the end. He's an incredible character, like many others that are bad people, such as Sandor Clegane and Littlefinger. I enjoy them greatly as literary centerpieces without needing to stand judgement over their actions.


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Tyrion is one of my favorite POV characters, possibly even in the top 5. That said, I can understand why some people dislike him: he's egocentric, vindictive and has steadily grown darker throughout the series. I still find him to be entertaining, incredibly witty, supremely intelligent and very sympathetic.


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I don't care how good or bad Tyrion is in the end. He's an incredible character, like many others that are bad people, such as Sandor Clegane and Littlefinger. I enjoy them greatly as literary centerpieces without needing to stand judgement over their actions.

:cheers: This is how i feel about all the characters, they are well written and play their parts, so I don't 'hate' any of them. they all make it a good story.

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..and I never knew there was this "don't distinguish between arranged marriages and forced ones involving a prisoner"-thing going on..

The similarity is that they are both involving a girl or woman who does not wish to be married. The woman/girl is given no choice. That is what makes them immoral from a modern point of view. The lack of freedom. Thus, all arranged marriages in Westeros are immoral because they take away the woman/girl's choice. Is that not correct?

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The real hated characters are the likes of Joffrey, Randyll, High Sparow, Janos Slynt, Walder Frey....

I honestly don't hate the High Sparrow. I understand he is hated because he is a theological character exerting power rather then a secular one, and because he made Cersei walk naked through the city.

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Molests? Your definition and mine are certainly different here. He never lays a finger or other body part on her. In fact he prevents her from being disrobed on the way to the bedchamber.

He didn't supply the force in that marriage ceremony; it was Tywin and at his (or Cersei's) orders the King's Guardsmen. Sansa would have been forcibly married to some other Lannister than Tyrion if he had taken one of the other options. Would the same hate be directed toward Lancel, Daven, or other character? I strongly doubt that.

So grabbing her naked boob and flicking her nipple doesn't count as molestation? Cuz that'll totally get a 26 year old man tossed in jail here in America when he does it to a 13 year old!

Listen, Tyrion is a fabulously written character, but he's a douche. It's totally understandable to dislike him. He's done numerous bad things, including:

-Arming mountain clans, causing who knows how many smallfolk deaths

-raping his wife

-allowing his father to have his wife raped by 50 men

-forcibly marries Sansa because it's what's convenient for him

-molests Sansa

-rapes a prostitute, throws up on her carpet, rapes her again knowing she'll be beaten for his actions

-generally acts like a total douche to just about everyone he comes in contact with

-threatens to beat Tommen

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I don't care how good or bad Tyrion is in the end. He's an incredible character, like many others that are bad people, such as Sandor Clegane and Littlefinger. I enjoy them greatly as literary centerpieces without needing to stand judgement over their actions.

:cheers: This is how i feel about all the characters, they are well written and play their parts, so I don't 'hate' any of them. they all make it a good story.

Hear, hear! I don't judge the characters of ASoIaF (especially by our own modern standards) as that doesn't really make much sense to me. However, they are quite entertaining to read about!

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A Tyrion hate thread? Count me in.



Tywin was right about everything he said about Tyrion being a little waddling ball of hatred, lust and low cunning. Took me a re-read to see how greedy, selfish and spiteful he truly is. Don't get me started on the bullying.



Right up to the minute he killed Tywin he was still calling the Tower of the Hand his chambers. Loves Shae desperately and dearly and then all of a sudden he wants Sansa as well. Despises Tywin even though his father actually does things that shows he cares in his own Tywin Lannister way ("You didn't visit me enough when I was in a coma, daddy!")



I dunno. Maybe you wouldn't have a disgusting scar if you kept your bandages on, Tyrion?



Even though I can't stand the little cretin I won't accuse him of molesting Sansa or raping the whore. He is guilty of raping Tysha... the same girl he's on a quest to "find" because, you know, that'll work. Still pisses me off he killed Tywin when Cersei was the source of all his troubles.


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The similarity is that they are both involving a girl or woman who does not wish to be married. The woman/girl is given no choice. That is what makes them immoral from a modern point of view. The lack of freedom. Thus, all arranged marriages in Westeros are immoral because they take away the woman/girl's choice. Is that not correct?

and how does this similarity outweigh the larger difference? btw, it is also false that arranged marriages in Westeros take away the woman's choice to the extent forced ones do seeing how Brienne was able to influence her father's choice and in the end reject him and Arianne can practically choose freely.

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So grabbing her naked boob and flicking her nipple doesn't count as molestation? Cuz that'll totally get a 26 year old man tossed in jail here in America when he does it to a 13 year old!

They're not in America though, are they? :)

Is your argument that it is wrong to do that to all 13 year olds everywhere, everytime? Or just in America?

I will guess that you think that it is always wrong for a 26 year old to grab the boob of a 13 year old and flick the nipple, and that's cool. But the vast majority of Westeros and Esssos and certain places in the real world, today and in the past, don't agree with you, especially when the 13 year old is the 26 year old's wife.

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They're not in America though, are they? :)

Is your argument that it is wrong to do that to all 13 year olds everywhere, everytime? Or just in America?

I will guess that you think that it is always wrong for a 26 year old to grab the boob of a 13 year old and flick the nipple, and that's cool. But the vast majority of Westeros and Esssos and certain places in the real world, today and in the past, don't agree with you, especially when the 13 year old is the 26 year old's wife.

wtsf. I assume you meant to write forcibly married prisoner wife who was very obviously uncomfortable with it all. It doesn't matter if that world doesn't agree. That is what happened.

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-allowing his father to have his wife raped by 50 men

and what could of Tyrion done to stop this? Do you think Tywin would have listened to him? Im sorry but i cannot find myself to hold this against Tyrion, this action is solely the fault of Tywin.

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In order to get closer to Tyrion's character it is imo important to see what his role is in the books is, why Martin gave us precisely this character.

Tyrion as literary invention mirrors the complexity of the books in an exemplary manner:

That famous wedding night chapter is one of the best written in the books, it tells us incredibly much about both characters concerned. And in ADWD Martin had to bring Tyrion down to the bottom of moral and real dirt in order to build up, I guess, the character again. This physical and moral lowlevel intends to show us what could become of any character if the signpost is turned only a little bit, every path is open. Tyrion is not automatically set up as hero, as positive identification character, he does not fulfil our desire to see the good guys win easily, no straight stairway to a positive ending that will inevitably happen. Nothing is given here, neither the dark path nor a turn to light.

I believe many posters relate to Tyrion like disappointed lovers. The opposite of love is not indifference but hatred. So the character has disappointed them big time since he was supposed to be the good guy, someone to root for. And then he turned out to be hard to digest, complex and not the morally superior Uncle Tom cripple readers feel morally entitled to love. No poor downtrodden vertically challenged asexual model handicapped with a heart of gold, in the books to sacrifice himself or to promote the one true hero, stepping back into second row whenever the good guys and girls have to shine. Tyrion bites back and with every fiber of his existence he refuses to be reduced to victim. He on some occasions may even become the victimizer but he fights every single moment, no compliant saint accepting his fate.

No, the character develops a life of its own, does not fulfill expectations anymore. Readers have fallen out of love since they bought a good guy and got a personality with many unexpected layers. That's not what they have emotionally invested in and they feel tricked and betrayed instead of seeing that they got so much more depth and complexity for their emotional investment.

The author very consciously walks the thin line betwen making us like or despise exactly this character, he does that with many other protagonists, leading them into or out of morally conflicting situations to make judgement difficult for us: Dany first of all but as well Theon or Sansa e.g. In Tyrion's case this is even more carefully orchestrated: we have too much pity with the disinherited dwarf? Let him marry Sansa! We are disappointed now? Let him not rape her! He has been sentenced to death? Let him commit double murder! Poor homeless exiled? Let him threaten a slave! Let the rich upperclass brat become a slave himself, he had it coming....etc... There is a deliberate pattern behind this, we are carefully manipulated into an emotional rollercoaster ride with the character Tyrion more than with others.

So it is somewhat pointless to paint Tyrion dark or to wash him white since we are supposed to have very conflicting feelings about that hugely fascinating character even more than about most other characters, Martin wants us to develop strong emotions here. The author has cleverly calculated the emotional swing of some readers, fully knowing what he does and that some more swings will follow.

I personally love Tyrion's ADWD chapters, especially the Rhoyne travels, they remind me of Bruce Chatwin or of travels along ruins of the disappeared Khmer empire on the Mekong river. Like the Dany chapters in Essos have "Kingdom of Heaven" quality, mirroring the cultural clashes and ethical disasters of the crusades, Constantinoples being Mereen.

It is a pity that readers do not have more patience with those quieter travelogues. They are wonderfully written.

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{snip}

I had no idea that Tyrion raped or molested Sansa. As far as I know Tyrion was rather gallant by not raping or molesting Sansa. But that draws one into the argument where some believe that not raping someone doesn't make you a good person.

I think you've hit on something here. Perhaps some of the heated arguments about rape/not-rape or molesting/not-molesting give the impression that he is hated.

He certainly is a very interesting character who sparks strong reactions in readers. That's a good thing.

Molests? Your definition and mine are certainly different here. He never lays a finger or other body part on her. In fact he prevents her from being disrobed on the way to the bedchamber.

He didn't supply the force in that marriage ceremony; it was Tywin and at his (or Cersei's) orders the King's Guardsmen. Sansa would have been forcibly married to some other Lannister than Tyrion if he had taken one of the other options. Would the same hate be directed toward Lancel, Daven, or other character? I strongly doubt that.

1. He ordered her to disrobe for him and then grabbed her breast. It was after that that he stopped himself. That's molesting, in my definition.

2. The force in that marriage ceremony was not against Tyrion. Sometimes the argument is made that he had no choice and was forced into marrying Sansa. This is untrue. He could have married Sansa or Lollys or someone else. He chose Sansa, while Sansa had no choice and was married to him against her will.

3. IMO the same hate would have been directed against Lancel or Daven or any other Lannister character. (At least from me!) The outrage is that 12-year-old prisoner Sansa was forced into a marriage against her will to anyone, especially to a Lannister - her jailers. It isn't because that particular Lannister (or husband) was Tyrion.

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and how does this similarity outweigh the larger difference? btw, it is also false that arranged marriages in Westeros take away the woman's choice to the extent forced ones do seeing how Brienne was able to influence her father's choice and in the end reject him and Arianne can practically choose freely.

LOL. Neither Brienne or Arianne are in arranged marriages are they? :) Bringing suitors to the castle is not an arranged marriage. An arranged marriage is when your father or mother say "this is who you're marrying", and they get married. Where is the choice in that? If the girl says "no" and the marriage doesn't happen, then it wasn't an arranged marriage.

I'm sorry, what is the larger difference you are referring to? Between an arranged marriage and "marriage by force"?

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