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So, Tyrion is a Lannister… But, Why?


Slayer of Lies

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Quick question to those who think the Targaryens are not the most important family of the series...



Why do we get four, and soon five, novellas that deal with the Targaryen dynasty and why is there plans for a Targaryen history book (formerly GRRMarillion, now FIRE AND BLOOD)? I think its pretty obvious the Targs are extremely important, even there is officially only one left.


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He is a foil. The fake one put forward and said to be a Targ while two real Targs are hiding in plain sight. Why is that such a problem?

Because it still was a Targ reveal. It doesn't matter, if he is a lowborn boy with Valyrian looks or a Blackfyre he was still revealed as a Targ. I don't like the overplaying of the Targ reveal card sue me.

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Quick question to those who think the Targaryens are not the most important family of the series...

Why do we get four, and soon five, novellas that deal with the Targaryen dynasty and why is there plans for a Targaryen history book (formerly GRRMarillion, now FIRE AND BLOOD)? I think its pretty obvious the Targs are extremely important, even there is officially only one left.

Off topic. Is the FIRE AND BLOOD/GRRMarillion same as the World of Ice and Fire book?

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Because it still was a Targ reveal. It doesn't matter, if he is a lowborn boy with Valyrian looks or a Blackfyre he was still revealed as a Targ. I don't like the overplaying of the Targ reveal card sue me.

Ok, well chances are that the books will disappoint you then.

The dragon has three heads. There are three dragons that will be ridden. Which means there are three living people with Targaryen blood at least, and in order to have survived recent history, they lived because they were hidden, so therefore must be revealed.

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Ok, well chances are that the books will disappoint you then.

The dragon has three heads. There are three dragons that will be ridden. Which means there are three living people with Targaryen blood at least, and in order to have survived recent history, they lived because they were hidden, so therefore must be revealed.

I dunno. To me it sounds very unGRRRMish.

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Quick question to those who think the Targaryens are not the most important family of the series...

Why do we get four, and soon five, novellas that deal with the Targaryen dynasty and why is there plans for a Targaryen history book (formerly GRRMarillion, now FIRE AND BLOOD)? I think its pretty obvious the Targs are extremely important, even there is officially only one left.

Because the Starks are the most important family of the series. Period. Bar none. Which is why we have had 6 Stark POVs, and at most 2 Targaryan POVs.

The Dunk and Egg Novellas are just a side project to further explore the world unrelated to the main plot.

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I might be misinterpreting your post, but I doubt, that Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys are coming together defeating the Others or whatnot riding on dragons.

I see. Well I kind of doubt that too. The dragon having three heads and it being those three riders may have not much at all to do with the Others.

Jon will clearly have a role with the Others. I suspect Nymeria's wolf pack will also as will all the direwolves. The other dragon heads have other roles elsewhere.

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Wow, thanks for the long and detailed response! I'm afraid I will not be able to match it. But let me try to respond:

Any thoughtful response “matches” mine, as we’re all just sharing our opinions here, and that’s what makes these discussions so enthralling: that we can all have such different opinions about the same series or subject, and believe (or desire) the books to be heading in different directions based on the info we have at present… yet we don’t all weigh clues or rationalize outcomes the same, so collaborative discussion allows us to better understand alternative viewpoints.

As it happens, responses like yours are the very reason I started this thread. I think it’s interesting to “get to the bottom” of why people feel the way they do about certain possible scenarios. And in the case of Tyrion’s lineage, it’s interesting to weigh the subconscious projection of our desires against the purely data-driven possibilities, as it sometimes seems that GRRM often chooses that path where he’s laid the fewest clues, and he is unpredictable even in that.

Yes, this is exactly what I was asking. I am really intrigued by your "how does X tell a better story" approach to X=Tyrion being a Lannister. I think we don't often debate these topics from this approach. I wasn't seriously suggesting that Sam and Theon were actually secret Targs, instead was trying to explore how important a blood relationship is to parental conflict in this series.

My view is that the blood relationship is important to the pathos of Sam, Theon and Tyrion. I read your other posts as dismissing this as an importnt element for Tyrion. I wondered how you felt about the other characters for whom rejection by their fathers plays an important part in their story.

Interestingly, yes, blood relationship is a consistently prominent aspect of the series, and a tool GRRM seems to employ to get us to feel strongly about the importance of certain relationships in the series. Additionally, I think it could also be argued that blood relationships are important to character pathos, as friendships, romances and dislike or distrust or even hatred of “others” are prominent emotions in the series as well.

Using the “Tyrion’s lineage” topic as a touchstone, if none of “Tywin’s kids” turn out to be his, for example, I would argue that it would shift our sympathies differently, though not remove them all together. Whatever our opinions on the matter in advance, I imagine GRRM would work to make us realize that “Tywin’s kids” all spent their lives under the thumb of a man who wasn’t even their father, and one who seemed to be operating toward the greater long term good of house Lannister, even if he suspected that his kids weren’t actually his, and even if he was going about it in “the wrong way.” It would also mean that there’s a symmetry between Robert’s three legitimate kids being Jaime’s as paralleled “upstream” by Tywin’s three legitimate kids being Aerys’, and – as Ser Arthyr Dracenstein pointed out – not only that Robert had raised the very Targaryens that he’d spent his life hating (using those bloodlines as a distinction for the irony), but also that Tywin had raised “his” kids out of a desire to benefit house Lannister, which ironically meant more to him than blood relationships.

It’s within this frame that I suggest the significance of a lineage change for Tyrion would not mean that his relationship with Tywin was diluted or undermined in any way, but instead would be “evolved” from our previous understanding. Tywin still raised Tyrion, and still treated him the way he did, and still has an impact on Tyrion even from the grave… regardless of their blood relationship. As such, if we later learn that Tywin did all that he did under the suspicion that one or all of his kids might not have been his, that should serve to evolve or elevate the way we think about various actions, conversations and relationships in the series during subsequent reads (not unlike a book 1-3 reread, only noting from the beginning this time that Lysa’s murder of Jon Arryn more or less set the events of book 1 in motion, and ultimately delivered Ned to his death).

What I think I'm reading here is not that you don't recognize the importance of the blood relationship between Tyrion and Tywin (if it exists). You just think that what the story loses in father / son pathos it more than makes up for in the importance of Tyrion being a Targ and the Jon/Tyrion role reversal and the Jaime/Aerys Tyrion/Tywin duality. I can see how you would feel this way, there is certainly ample reason to suspect that Tyrion may be a Targ (as you and others point out).

That’s basically what I’m trying to say. Although I also recognize that I tend to separate myself from the characters emotionally a little bit, because “it’s fiction,” and – for me – “plotline” tends to supersede “relationships” in my ranking of what makes a good fantasy series. For this reason, I think more interesting plot related details and possibilities can fall out a change to Tyrion’s lineage than would by simply “maintaining” it, on top of which (as I said in the previous section) I personally don’t believe Tyrion’s relationship with Tywin would be undermined by this change so much as “evolved” and “traded up” for richer plotlines, although I certainly recognize that others wouldn’t be as satisfied with that outcome.

Therefore, ideally, an excellent balance of strong plotlines and relationships will be maintained through the end of the series, and that’s pretty much entirely on GRRM’s weighting of “nature versus nurture” in storytelling, especially where certain character arcs and lineages are concerned. And regardless of where that balance lies, if he opts to present a scenario that we thought we weren’t comfortable with going in (e.g. inarguably confirming Jon Snow’s lineage one way or the other) will he be able to present the reveal in a way that satisfies the people who aren’t getting what they “thought” they wanted in advance? I hope so, and I believe he can, but we shall see.

Again, approaching this from a "what would make a better story" perspective, I suppose I could go along with Tyrion being a secret Targ if and only if R+L<>J. I think there is room in the story for only one secret Targ. I guess my money is on Jon. I think that if R+L=J and J+A=T are both true, my personal enjoyment of the series would suffer (kind of like if the hooded man is Theon Durden). So I choose to believe that Tyrion is a Lannister from my personal perspective. I guess I can't really support this in any objective way, other than too many secret Targs would be a disappointment to me, I think.

I also understand the “too many secret Targs” complaint, in that GRRM would be playing that particular card twice.

But if we fast-forward to a potential scenario where R+L=J was revealed and fAegon cast down per the “slayer of lies” prophecy, Martin might be stuck between a rock and a hard place. For example, it must also be revealed at some point that the “three heads of the dragon” does not refer three distinct people (e.g. that Jon Snow is “the one”), that the three heads are three distinct people and that bloodline is an important facet of that (e.g. Jon, Dany, and someone else with part-Targ foreshadowing), or that bloodline has zero bearing whatsoever on whether someone can be a head of the dragon (e.g. Jon, Dany and nearly anyone else in the series).

From where I sit, if bloodline is an important aspect of the prophecy, as “dragon” seems to imply, and if we’re dealing with three distinct people, as “three heads” seems to imply (along with Rhaegar’s “there must be one more” while holding up the “real” Aegon), what can GRRM do except present a third part-Targ character to complete the trio, and which character would offer the greatest satisfaction / result in the lowest amount of disappointment?

For me, that character is Tyrion, although that desire/belief hinges on other aspects of the story also falling into place, such as R+L=J, and the “three heads prophecy” meaning what I think it does. However, as soon as it becomes clearer that the “three heads” prophecy definitely means something other than “three part-Targ people,” or if a major spoke in the theoretical wheel of J/D/T being part-Targ heads of the dragon is otherwise broken, then those of us that support that idea through our interpretation of what we thought was foreshadowing will be driven to reconcile events in a different way...

…as with anybody whose ideas or theories aren’t met with the desired reveal.

Anyway thanks again for another excellent thread & for such a substantive response to my question.

And thank you for adding to the conversation!

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Also, as reminded by Modesty Lannister in another thread, Tyrion being a Targ and married to Sansa Stark would trigger another possible Song of Ice and Fire...

Yes, and possibly another reading for the "dragons from Stone" prophecy... Sansa being a[n Alayne] Stone" ... (and "layne" perhaps having an Old English etymology meaning "hidden").

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Also, as reminded by Modesty Lannister in another thread, Tyrion being a Targ and married to Sansa Stark would trigger another possible Song of Ice and Fire...

I’m personally holding out for LF to produce Tysha, whether or not she’s the Sailor’s Wife, and thereby annul Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion. As it stands, LF doesn’t seem to be that concerned that Sansa is married to Tyrion, and I suspect it’s because he has something up his sleeve to annul their marriage (if it becomes necessary to do so). My favorite pet theory for what “that something” could be is Tyrion’s first wife, as there is no proof of annulment in the text that I've found.

Yes, and possibly another reading for the "dragons from Stone" prophecy... Sansa being a[n Alayne] Stone" ... (and "layne" perhaps having an Old English etymology meaning "hidden").

Interesting connection there, although the connection to “layne” could be also be seen simply as A(layne) being Sansa’s present disguise, or “hiding place.”

Overall, I don’t know that Tyrion’s potential Targ lineage would necessarily matter beyond affirming him as a head of the dragon (if it does), though not necessarily for the purpose of kicking off a secondary Targ dynasty, rekindling matters with Sansa or becoming a member of a “warring Targ faction.” :dunno:

Conversely, I’m not sure what Sansa’s long game is (or rather, what GRRM’s plan for her is), and it would feel more impactful to me for LF (post Harry the Heir’s “mysterious death”) to offer Sansa’s hand to fAegon down the road. This, of course, would provide another way to navigate to the symbolic “dragons from stone” connection, and give us an interesting POV to view fAegon’s actions through as well.

But I find it challenging to deduce where her arc is headed beyond (hopefully) overcoming LF at some point (whether or not LF is the “giant” from the GoHH’s prophecy) and, of course, no longer (?) being married to the allegedly terrible Harry the Heir.

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I’m personally holding out for LF to produce Tysha, whether or not she’s the Sailor’s Wife, and thereby annul Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion. As it stands, LF doesn’t seem to be that concerned that Sansa is married to Tyrion, and I suspect it’s because he has something up his sleeve to annul their marriage (if it becomes necessary to do so). My favorite pet theory for what “that something” could be is Tyrion’s first wife, as there is no proof of annulment in the text that I've found.

If the marriage could still be held as valid, Tywin "leaves nothing to chance" Lannister would have hung the girl and be done with it. As it is, there are so many irregularities with Tyrion and Tysha's marriage that even local septons could say the marriage was never valid to begin with. No witnesses, a drunk septon paid to perform the ceremony, a lack of guardians despite the fact both were minors, and the fact Tyrion undoubtedly told some whopper lies to get the septon to go through with it. All this adds up to a ceremony that was never valid to begin with, and hence nothing to annul.

Even then, Tywin probably had a document from the High Septon claiming the marriage was never valid, because there is a good chance he owes his post to the former Hand of the King.

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If the marriage could still be held as valid, Tywin "leaves nothing to chance" Lannister would have hung the girl and be done with it. As it is, there are so many irregularities with Tyrion and Tysha's marriage that even local septons could say the marriage was never valid to begin with. No witnesses, a drunk septon paid to perform the ceremony, a lack of guardians despite the fact both were minors, and the fact Tyrion undoubtedly told some whopper lies to get the septon to go through with it. All this adds up to a ceremony that was never valid to begin with, and hence nothing to annul.

Even then, Tywin probably had a document from the High Septon claiming the marriage was never valid, because there is a good chance he owes his post to the former Hand of the King.

:agree: For me, the marriage between Tyrion and Sansa could be meant to last: in addition to the song of ice and fire it could symbolise if Tyrion is indeed a Targ, it also fits in well with the 'more beautiful queen' prophecy (Sansa then) if Tyrion makes it to the IT (my inner instinctive belief, Targ or not). And interestingly as well is the fact that Sansa could evolve the same way her mother did: progressively falling in love with her imposed non-glamour (!) husband.

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If the marriage could still be held as valid, Tywin "leaves nothing to chance" Lannister would have hung the girl and be done with it. As it is, there are so many irregularities with Tyrion and Tysha's marriage that even local septons could say the marriage was never valid to begin with. No witnesses, a drunk septon paid to perform the ceremony, a lack of guardians despite the fact both were minors, and the fact Tyrion undoubtedly told some whopper lies to get the septon to go through with it. All this adds up to a ceremony that was never valid to begin with, and hence nothing to annul.

Even then, Tywin probably had a document from the High Septon claiming the marriage was never valid, because there is a good chance he owes his post to the former Hand of the King.

While those are all plausible justifications that I can see unfolding, none of them are stated outright in the text. It’s also interesting to me that it’s not stated in the text whether Tyrion’s first marriage was annulled or not, which could be important.

With the search for Tysha being a theme of Tyrion’s through ADWD, and with Sansa being a part of Tyrion’s arc as well, I think LF more or less being the answer to “wherever whores go” could tell an interesting story.

Perhaps we may even learn someday that Septon Cellador married them, and was later sent to the Wall by Tywin for his “crime.”

But I’m not holding my breath for that.

Either way, I’ll be curious to see which way GRRM takes this aspect, and whether the Tyrion/Tysha annulment was omitted from the text for the purpose of a surprise twist, or if he’s going to take the Tysha angle somewhere else altogether, having written off their “assumed annulment” per something akin to the justifications you provided.

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Because it means Tyrion is truly Tywin's heir whether he likes it or not; Genna said as much. If Tywin had groomed Tyrion more he would have found in him an incredibly able ruler and heir.



Instead he delivers a few sharp 'lessons' and discludes him until Jaime is practically dead and it's clear Cersei is an idiot. And even then he was already working on another heir for his dynasty, likely one of Kevan's children or Damon Lannister.



Making Tyrion a Targ will make his dragon taming far too easy.


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The dragon has three heads. There are three dragons that will be ridden. Which means there are three living people with Targaryen blood at least, and in order to have survived recent history, they lived because they were hidden, so therefore must be revealed.

GRRM says you don't have to have Targ blood to ride a dragon. Though if you're not a Targ you might need to be a Warg. ;)

And yes, it would make sense for that to mean there are three remaining Targ descendants. I'm just leaning toward a Nettles-like thing (and if we're going for total parallels, either Missendei or Arya for the rider in that case).

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