Tywin was not that bad of a father to Tyrion.

[Ser Yo of House Lo]

Everyone is spiting Tywin for being a shitty father, which may be true to a degree, but has anyone considered that Tyrion was kind of a shitty son?

[Ser Yo of House Lo]

That is an awful, sick thing to do. Had Cersei married a pig farmer, he too would have been tortured and killed. This is not Tywin singling Tyrion out.

The sad thing is the society of Westeros is fucked up. Not just Tywin but across the board. They all believe that they are better than their subjects. We have been told repeated cases of Lords raping their subjects, we know how one Lord sold people into slavery or how a fair punishment for stealing is losing your hand. It is not a nice place for the smallfolk.

We have an indication of what the Nobility thinks of the peasants, Robb says he will give a 100 to the Watch in return for Jon. 1 nobles is worth a 100 peasants.

It is awful. But Tywin is hardly alone in treating them like shit.

This is classic Lannister tit for tat. Tywin is better at cutting down people with words then Tyrion is, but then Tyrion is able to do it better than Cersei and Joffrey. The Lannisters love that shit.

And to be fair, he's making demands of his father, the Lord of his House. It is just not done. Demanding Csterly Rock was an outrageously stupid move.

You are reaching with the ableism, here.

For someone who apparently is an ableist he has no problem giving Tyrion a command position in the battle of Grren fork or making him his stand in Hand at Kings Landing, not Kevan or some other Westerland Lord but Tyrion.

Again, you are blaming Tywin for how that society treats people with disabilities. Look at how they treat Bran.

Harrion Karstark, the oldest of Lord Rickard's sons, bowed, and his brothers after him, yet as they settled back in their places he heard the younger two talking in low voices, over the clatter of wine cups. " . . . sooner die than live like that," muttered one, his father's namesake Eddard, and his brother Torrhen said likely the boy was broken inside as well as out, too craven to take his own life.

Robert Baratheon, friend of the his father thinks the same, that he should be put out of his misery.

Tywin was no more an ableist than the majority of the population of Westeros.

Once again people are judging characters they don't agree with on modern day sensibilities. If my father took me to watch him chop a mans head off when I was 8 years of age, he'd be locked up for child abuse. In Westeros it is perfectly understandable

True.

This, all of this. /thread/

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

To paraphrase Bronn, "If the choice was between fighting the mountain and fucking Lollys, you'd have your cock out of your breeches in an instant."

Unfortunately in Westeros, women get raped, sometimes even gang raped. And while this causes horrible mental damage that they'll never fully recover from, they are still alive, they can still have children of their own and can still lead happy lives. It would not cause the level of post traumatic stress that Theon's treatment would usually provoke.

Thus, I'd argue that having to kill innocent people during war (as most lords and kings do, including Tywin and other more "virtuous" characters like Robb) is far worse.

Being gang raped and in fear of your life for a woman who was already mentally slow would not have caused the level of post traumatic stress that Theon's treatment would usually provoke? That is a really horribly sexist and insensitive remark. I know we speak of fictional characters but there are women on this forum who have suffered this fate and I beg to differ with you on the levels of PTSD being gang raped and almost murdered, not to mention abandoned and then left to marry a brute like Bronn would cause. I don't know what it is you're thinking, but child abuse is not okay and the level to which Twyin tormented Tyrion was enough to instill enough hatred and fury to get himself murdered. Saying his treatment of Tyrion wasn't that bad is like telling a father that watching his daughter being gang raped along side her mother isn't so very bad, after all, she can have an abortion and we can all live happily ever after........UMM...........WHAT?????

[The Wolves]

Everyone is spiting Tywin for being a shitty father, which may be true to a degree, but has anyone considered that Tyrion was kind of a shitty son?

Maybe Tyrion wouldn't be a shitty son if Tywin wasn't a shitty father.

[little spiders]

Tywin is obviously a terrible father but what interests me is that from his introduction in GoT up until just before his death Tywin's actions have been seemingly positive toward Tyrion. He makes him hand than master of coin. Marries him to Sansa who is beautiful and "heir" to winterfell. He involves Tyrion with his Lannister plots even though he says nothing nice about his character.

But everything he says shows he seems to despise Tyrion fully. Tywin's interactions with him always seemed disjointed somehow, possibly because of his inner conflict. On one hand Tyrion is his blood with in his opinion makes him better than everyone else. On the other hes a whore mongering lush, ungrateful (in tywins eyes) a dwarf and his birth caused the death of his beloved wife.

if its between "not that bad" or horrible than I suppose hes not that bad if "that bad" is crastor roose tarly or frey (thrown in for over-breeding, and using his descendants in the RW). But im sure the average lord is a good father or at least a better father than Tywin. His overall disposition and the situation with Tysha pushes him way over the edge. Yeah he was that bad, the Tysha thing is that bad.

[Lord Freypie]

Answering to the "fathers of the year" list...

Roose : we have no elements to affirm he wasn't a decent father for his trueborn son (except if the crackpot theory where he killed him is true), and if he harshly criticizes Ramsay at times he did get him legitimized, and I'd also note that Ramsay was certainly desserving being humbled as he threatened to destroy Boltons influence with his gratuitous shows of cruelty (and even Roose was a comprehensive enough father to just ask him for more discretion in his psychotic passtimes) . It's also hard to say if he's really thinking what he says to Theon about letting Ramsay kill his future childs, or if it's his strange kind of dark humour.

Robert was violent with one of his "sons" one time because he cruelly eviscerated a pregnant cat but out of that looked like he loved his childs (see his last will) if his alcoolism eventually made him a distant father. Also Cersei certainly contributed to cut "his" childs from him, going so far as threatening to kill her husband if he slapped Joffrey another time, ignoring how desserved it could have been knowing Joffrey.

Balon in his coldness may be the closest to Tywin's kind of bad parenting, but he mostly was hostile to his son because he considered Theon under the influence of an ennemy family (and indeed Theon proposed him to ally with a dynasty Balon considered responsible for the death of his other two sons, and also looked like he had forgotten some traditions ironborns were supposed to follow). Also note that while, like Tywin in the Greenfork he only gave a low leadership position in his forces to his son for the invasion of the North, the mission he gave to Theon was not a risky one but rather the less dangerous in all his plans, unlike Tyrion being sent to first line leading troops the battle plan expected to rout.

Holster looked like a good father for his only son, and if he did force one of his daughter to abort and marry an old man it was certainly not because of cruelty but because of purely political reasons.

Craster was a man of gods who sacrified his sons for religious reasons and living north of the wall isn't really comparable with westerosi lords.

Randyll Tarly tried in to make his son an hardened warrior, because he considered only a knight heir could honor his house. He despised Samwell for failing to live up to his expectations, but only after giving him many chances. If he ended being about an as a bad father as Tywin (and like I said he's one of the two I rate as "arguably worse") it looks like his final decision to disinherit him by sending him to the Wall was a bit less gratuitous than Tywin's denying Tyrion's birthright after he proven to be a good servant of his family in the Blackwater.

The unnamed Clegane father did let Sandor's face be burned without punishing his firstborn son for that, but as it's all we know of him he's hard to judge, avoiding a scandal that would have made his heir appear as the monster he was may have been done with his house interest in mind or out of love for the cute Gregor. Ok... He's another I rate as possibly worse.

Were Tywin's main motives of the same magnitude as the ones bolded ? Was there any things Tyrion could have done to see Tywin treats him less harshly ? He could certainly have avoided Tysha's story by not marrying her, and later whoring in general, but would it have changed Tywin's globally hostile attitude ? (edit : Writing that, after reflexion, it may be the case, it's just impossible to know)

But my overall impression is Tywin's hate for Tyrion came mostly from two things that weren't at all in Tyrion's power : having "killed his wife" at birth (like if he could have done anything to avoid that), and being a dwarf (+ perhaps a third reason if Tywin doubted being his true father).

[Xenharmonic]

Being gang raped and in fear of your life for a woman who was already mentally slow would not have caused the level of post traumatic stress that Theon's treatment would usually provoke? That is a really horribly sexist and insensitive remark. I know we speak of fictional characters but there are women on this forum who have suffered this fate and I beg to differ with you on the levels of PTSD being gang raped and almost murdered, not to mention abandoned and then left to marry a brute like Bronn would cause. I don't know what it is you're thinking, but child abuse is not okay and the level to which Twyin tormented Tyrion was enough to instill enough hatred and fury to get himself murdered. Saying his treatment of Tyrion wasn't that bad is like telling a father that watching his daughter being gang raped along side her mother isn't so very bad, after all, she can have an abortion and we can all live happily ever after........UMM...........WHAT?????

What I said was not sexist in the slightest.

Being sexually penetrated either as a man or a woman is nowhere near as bad as actually being tortured the way Theon was.

Sure, it's bad, but it wouldn't be nearly as likely to break your mind in the way that Theon's was broken.

Study victims of torture vs rape victims if you don't believe me.

By the way, Bronn is not a brute and he doesn't hurt people for fun like Ramsay.

He's just a ruthless, calculating character who is willing to screw others over for his own personal benefit.

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

That is an awful, sick thing to do. Had Cersei married a pig farmer, he too would have been tortured and killed. This is not Tywin singling Tyrion out.

The sad thing is the society of Westeros is fucked up. Not just Tywin but across the board. They all believe that they are better than their subjects. We have been told repeated cases of Lords raping their subjects, we know how one Lord sold people into slavery or how a fair punishment for stealing is losing your hand. It is not a nice place for the smallfolk.

We have an indication of what the Nobility thinks of the peasants, Robb says he will give a 100 to the Watch in return for Jon. 1 nobles is worth a 100 peasants.

It is awful. But Tywin is hardly alone in treating them like shit.

This is classic Lannister tit for tat. Tywin is better at cutting down people with words then Tyrion is, but then Tyrion is able to do it better than Cersei and Joffrey. The Lannisters love that shit.

And to be fair, he's making demands of his father, the Lord of his House. It is just not done. Demanding Csterly Rock was an outrageously stupid move.

You are reaching with the ableism, here.

For someone who apparently is an ableist he has no problem giving Tyrion a command position in the battle of Grren fork or making him his stand in Hand at Kings Landing, not Kevan or some other Westerland Lord but Tyrion.

Again, you are blaming Tywin for how that society treats people with disabilities. Look at how they treat Bran.

Harrion Karstark, the oldest of Lord Rickard's sons, bowed, and his brothers after him, yet as they settled back in their places he heard the younger two talking in low voices, over the clatter of wine cups. " . . . sooner die than live like that," muttered one, his father's namesake Eddard, and his brother Torrhen said likely the boy was broken inside as well as out, too craven to take his own life.

Robert Baratheon, friend of the his father thinks the same, that he should be put out of his misery.

Tywin was no more an ableist than the majority of the population of Westeros.

Once again people are judging characters they don't agree with on modern day sensibilities. If my father took me to watch him chop a mans head off when I was 8 years of age, he'd be locked up for child abuse. In Westeros it is perfectly understandable

True.

I am blaming Tywin for how he treats his son. If we can hold Tyrion accountable for how he treated that servant girl at Ilyrio's, I can told Tywin accountable for his treatment of Tyrion.

Like wow, "tit-for-tat", as though this were anywhere an equal relationship. Those words did not have an iota of friendly repartee. Even Tywin Lannister's near-smiles are considered terrifying. The Lannister children live in absolute fear of their father. There's no equality when your father can have your wife gang-raped at 14, and then threaten to have your mistress/prostitute killed.

And as you very well know, he expected the Mountain Clans to break and run. Tyrion was put in the center of the line he wanted to fold. He made that plan, btw, without Tyrion's knowledge, so it clearly didn't very much matter if Tyrion died.

And why can't I hold him accountable by modern standards? Of course I am. GRRM wrote these books for a modern audience; for a modern audience to critique the violence of previously romanticized fantasy worlds, and their appalling moral values.

You said yourself, Tywin is a dick, and if you accept his total dickishness being a fan of his character will be much more logically consistent. He was especially ableist (his brother Gerion made the miraculous feet of not judging somebody based on their disability), and a bad father.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

Like wow, "tit-for-tat", as though this were anywhere an equal relationship.

It was not supposed to be an equal relationship. He is the Lord of their House. Robert does not have an equal relationship with Renly, Stannis or Joffrey. Hoster does not have an equal relationship with Brynden or his children.

It is not our society, they don't have the same dynamics. The Lord of the House is the Master. His word is law. Thank God we have moved on, but that is how it is.

Tyrion's biggest problem is that he does not follow the social order. He expects to be on the same standing as his Father the Lord of the Westerlands, his sister the Queen of Westeros and his nephew the future King of Westeros and when they don't show him the respect he thinks he deserves he gets pissy, as do his fans. They are not equal. Had he shown these three more respect he would have had a better chance of inheriting the Rock, but the antagonistic relationship he has with all three has doomed that from ever happening.

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

Tyrion's biggest problem is that he does not follow the social order.

You're almost right there: "I'm guilty of a far more monstrous crime...I'm guilty of being a dwarf."

Tyrion's story is a disability narrative, and about how people with disabilities are treated in society.

He literally helped save the city, and his own father stole his share of the credit. His father hated him even after he improved the Rock's drainage system. His father hated him after he managed to bring some order and good administration to KL, and then they used every instance where he had ever show kindness or defiance to put him on trial for murder. The people him a "demon monkey".

He was called a demon monkey, considered a monster at birth, and damned no matter what he did.

If you are blind to that, I don't know how to help you.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

You're almost right there: "I'm guilty of a far more monstrous crime...I'm guilty of being a dwarf."

Tyrion's story is a disability narrative, and about how people with disabilities are treated in society.

He literally helped save the city, and his own father stole his share of the credit. His father hated him even after he improved the Rock's drainage system. His father hated him after he managed to bring some order and good administration to KL, and then they used every instance where he had ever show kindness or defiance to put him on trial for murder. The people him a "demon monkey".

He was called a demon monkey, considered a monster at birth, and damned no matter what he did.

If you are blind to that, I don't know how to help you.

Tywin did not make him a dwarf though. He is no more ableist then the majority of Westerosi society.

Yet many of your arguments have been Tywin the awful ableist.

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

Tywin did not make him a dwarf though. He is no more ableist then the majority of Westerosi society.

Yet many of your arguments have been Tywin the awful ableist.

Cause he is.

He's an adult, and he made choices. Gerion, Tyrion distinctly remembers, made kinder choices. People make choices, and their character is defined by those choices.

Tywin could have done the same, and didn't, and so of course I'm going to criticize him for it, just as I criticize Tyrion for how he treated Ilyrio's servant girl and the sex slave in Volantis.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

Cause he is.

By our standards, yes, not by the standards of the world he lives in.

By our standards Ned would be a child abuser as he purposefully took his 8 year old son to watch him execute someone but not by the standards of the world he lives in.

[Daemon The Black Dragon]

Do you guys think Tywin would have treated Tyrion better if Joannna didn't die giving birth to Tyrion(let's say she still dies though, 6-12 months after Tyrion birth). To me Tywin hates Tyrion not because he was born a dwarf but because Joanna died giving birth to him.

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

By our standards, yes, not by the standards of the world he lives in.

By our standards Ned would be a child abuser as he purposefully took his 8 year old son to watch him execute someone but not by the standards of the world he lives in.

We're supposed to be judging these guys by our standards.

GRRM wants you to see how medieval societies were violent, ableist, misogynist, classist and all the other bad "-ists" you can think to name.

Of course you shouldn't call your kid a "creature" just because he's a dwarf. Of course you don't let a kid see a guy's head get chopped off, or just marry your daughter off like she's property. Those are terrible ideas.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

GRRM wants you to see how medieval societies were violent, ableist, misogynist, classist and all the other bad "-ists" you can think to name.

I don't think that's the case at all. I think you would have to be obsessed with finding "-ists" to even think that.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

We're supposed to be judging these guys by our standards.

Do you judge children by the same standards you do adults? If not, then why?

[devilish]

In my opinion he didn't kill Tyrion for two reasons

a) The Targs (Blackfire rebellion etc) showed that a divided House makes family vulnerable. By killing Tyrion he was teaching his own children that its ok to kill family, something Tywin wouldn't accept. He couldn't even afford having someone else killing him (even by accident) else the family would look weak.

b) Tywin's dream was always to have a king within his offspring. That could only be achieved through friends and allies. Being ruthless with your own baby son doesn't really give you a great reputation especially when one considers how honor is valued among most of the main family.

[sifth]

Simply, put would Ned, Robert, Stannis, Jon Aryn, Doran or pretty much any lord of a high house have an innocent girl gang raped.

Tywin is father of the year for sure.

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

I don't think that's the case at all. I think you would have to be obsessed with finding "-ists" to even think that.

The guy has been writing narrative that show how rape and genocide make this crazy little feudal world go round, and has the Tywin Lannister called the group of guys fighting to save the realm from the ice zombie apocalypse a bunch of "rats" and "thieves" i.e. insulting them for not being nobility. I don't know how you missed it.

Do you judge children by the same standards you do adults? If not, then why?

Tywin Lannister is an adult, and adults can make free choices. He made his.

His brother Gerion, made kinder choices. Other people in this world had the sense to make kinder choices.

Hell yeah I judge him.