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Did Tywin have so many fans before Charles Dance's portrayal?


larastone

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A villain does not mean a sadistic person or a perpetrator of wanton cruelty.

A villain is someone who lacks scruples, performs acts that hurt innocent people for their own benefit and happens to oppose a person or group of people that display moral and/heroic qualities. Tywin fits the bill. The guy may not get sexual pleasure from his atrocities but the fact that he is willing to commit them in such a clinical fashion shows a patological disregard for human life.

 

 

So Robb is a villain then?

 

I mean the smallfolk of the Westerlands were innocent yet he went there to hurt them for his own benefit.

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Yep, show Tywin was much nicer than book Twyin. I didn't really watch the show, but I saw the highlights of his time with Arya in Harrenhall, and was bemused.

 

Still, probably not, because as we know, way more people watched the show than have read the books.

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Yep, show Tywin was much nicer than book Twyin. I didn't really watch the show, but I saw the highlights of his time with Arya in Harrenhall, and was bemused.
 
Still, probably not, because as we know, way more people watched the show than have read the books.


A pity.
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So Robb is a villain then?
 
I mean the smallfolk of the Westerlands were innocent yet he went there to hurt them for his own benefit.


Only if you ignore the rest of my definition, that I don't pretend is flawless by the way. My point was to debunk that strange perception that a villain is only someone that is cruel for the sake of cruelty.

Despite the suffering he unavoidably caused once he decided to go to war, I don't see how Robb is a villain because he displays decency and good will in a lot of occasions. He genuinely cares for his people and considering he was chosen as a king of two entire regions by his bannermen and allies, he is not fighting for his own benefit only.

Just compare the two: Robb was relieved when he was advised to spare the life of a woman who was threatening his brother's life. Tywin casually hanged an innocent woman because she owned a tavern where the son he hates was kidnapped and displayed her decomposing corpse outside his tent for everyone to see. And that is not even usually listed among his crimes because the list is so vast...

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Only if you ignore the rest of my definition, that I don't pretend is flawless by the way. My point was to debunk that strange perception that a villain is only someone that is cruel for the sake of cruelty.

Despite the suffering he unavoidably caused once he decided to go to war, I don't see Robb as a villain because he displays decency and good will in a lot of occasions. He genuinely cares for his people and considering he was chosen as a king of two entire regions by his bannermen and allies, he is not fighting for his own benefit only.

Just compare the two: Robb was relieved when he was advised to spare the life of a woman who was threatening his brother's life. Tywin casually hanged an innocent woman because she owned a tavern where the son he hates was kidnapped and displayed her decomposing corpse outside his tent for everyone to see. And that is not even usually listed among his crimes because the list is so vast...


You were looking for "I was wrong"
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My definition was surely incomplete and flawed but yours is entirely innacurate. That is the definition of an antagonist. It's not the same. A villain can be a protagonist and a hero can be an antagonist.


Villain: A dramatic or fictional character who is at odds with the hero.

The dictionary disagrees with you.
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Villain: A dramatic or fictional character who is at odds with the hero.

The dictionary disagrees with you.

 

Which dictionary?

 

This one agrees with me: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/villain

 

Also this: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/villain

 

And this: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/villain

 

And this: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/villain

 

By the way: this dictionary you mentioned disagrees with you because a hero is not the same as a protagonist. A hero displays heroice qualities, so most of the time, the individual who opposes the hero is either misinformed about the hero's intentions or he is a "wicked" person, hence a villain.

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100%yes. I also think that Tywin's popularity with the unsullied has led to a lot of his fans from the books coming out more vocally in support of him. Which I will never understand even though I find him an intriguing character. I just can't like the bad guys when there are just as complex and interesting good guys
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Which dictionary?
 
This one agrees with me: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/villain
 
Also this: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/villain
 
And this: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/villain
 
And this: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/villain
 
By the way: this dictionary you mentioned disagrees with you because a hero is not the same as a protagonist. A hero displays heroice qualities, so most of the time, the individual who opposes the hero is either misinformed about the hero's intentions or he is a "wicked" person, hence a villain.



How do any of these agree with: "performs acts that hurt innocent people for their own benefit"?

I gave a very broad definition, you gave a very narrow one which applys to few stories.

As for the last bit, what? Heroes are dark frequently. Sometimes they find themsevles in a morally ambiguous situations, and the villain isn't a villain at all, but merely another person opposing them for ostensibly good reasons.
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How do any of these agree with: "performs acts that hurt innocent people for their own benefit"?

I gave a very broad definition, you gave a very narrow one which applys to few stories.

As for the last bit, what? Heroes are dark frequently. Sometimes they find themsevles in a morally ambiguous situations, and the villain isn't a villain at all, but merely another person opposing them for ostensibly good reasons.

 

All these definitions associate the idea of a villain to the figure of a vile, wicked person, a scroundel, which means a person who lacks principles. A person who lacks principle is likely to harm others for his/her own benefit, specially in a narrative that bases itself in conflicts.

 

Of course there are variations. I challenge you to find a perfect definition. Fiction desconstructs a lot of concepts and creates others: anti-hero, anti-villain, etc. I just don't think a guy who murder babies challenges the basic concept of a "villain". Tywin suits the term to a T.

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