Where is this idea that Tyrion was good in the first 3 books coming from when the vast majority of bad things he has done happen in them?

[Gilbert Green]

8 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Why would he when she was a prostitute that fake married him as far as he knew?

What was fake about the marriage?  Jaime never claimed it was part of the plan.  It was Tyrion's idea.  She agreed.  And they both said their vows.  She never broke her vows, and Jaime never claimed she ever did.  Only one person broke his vows and that was Tyrion.

Calling her a "prostitute" is just calling her names; which is especially funny since she was a child prostitute, still a virgin, procured from a human-trafficking pimp.  And in the end even that was not true, but so what if it was?

Why would he seek her out?  Maybe to honor the vows he made to her?  Failing that, maybe to do something else to make it up to her for the horrors his family inflicted on her?  Maybe check to make sure those two weeks of "fake" marriage had not gotten her pregnant.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[Aldarion]

20 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

I have never been heated. Not once. You are reading that behavior into me, and it doesn't make it the reality. I am very calm. Disliking rape-apologists doesn't mean I have to be heated about it. 

Also, to be clear, limiting hate speech is good. If a person professes desire to kill or subjugate a group of people, that is bad. They are limiting freedoms through their words, and fully admitting to a desire to limit the freedoms of others. There is long quote I wish I had saved in which they talk about how allowing hate speech and hateful rhetoric to exist allows that rhetoric/people to eventually take away the rights of others. The Veimer Republic, for example, was all about allowing all forms of speech (it's part of the reason the Nazis were able to rise to power).

But also, again, I am not a government. I am an individual. If you think all speech should be protected, then you should also believe that I should be able to say, "Don't do hate speech." as then that would also be my freedom. 

Oh, and I've been raped. The perpetrator made these same kind of excuses for their actions as I've seen here. You tell me, if you'd been raped, and had the person trying to convince others that you were "asking for it"...would you be as calm as I'm being when you see those same kind of ideas pop up? I doubt it. 

I said immature, not heated. Being heated I can understand. But when you are discussing a heavy topic like this, I would expect a certain level of maturity about it, no matter how justified your position is (and to be clear, I do agree with you on the topic. I also believe that government bears some of responsibility for people being raped because it restricts access to self-defense weapons such as handguns, but that is another question entirely).

This is what I was talking about:

On 11/11/2023 at 9:07 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Yeah man, I have a quote for you : 

“Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech. It means keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, which is prohibited under international law.”

From the United Nations. By allowing people to talk openly about how something thst is obviously rape isn’t rape, it can spread the idea that doing certain actions (rape actions) are acceptable or excusable actions, when in fact, they are not. You can keep trying to make this something it isn’t Dofs, all you want. But this is my position : Raping women is wrong If you excuse rape and try to pretend it isn’t rape, that is bad. It is a common technique men use to down play horrible actions they take. Again, say whatever you want, several people on this forum have been very direct in calling rape not rape. They have spent a lot ot, A LOT OF effort trying to protect a rapist from being called a rapist, and yes, I think that is bad. Period. 

Sorry, but I have seen too many times how "hate speech" accusations had been used to prevent discussion about crimes or even to attempt to whitewash genocide.

To repeat: people whitewashing or denying genocide and/or mass murder used hate speech accusations to prevent discussion of said crimes.

And it has happened often enough that I have become allergic to the very concept of "hate speech". As I said:

On 11/12/2023 at 9:13 AM, Aldarion said:

"Hate speech" is just a fancy whitewashed name for what back during Yugoslavia was known as a "verbal delict" - which was anything that the ruling Communist party didn't like. Whole idea of "hate speech" is just another facet of the same tyranny

Call people morons, idiots, evil for all I care... I do prefer a polite discussion, but I can understand people getting heated: it happens to me on occasion after all, for all that I try to avoid it, so it would be hypocritical of me to accuse other people of misbehavior simply for that.

Just try to avoid using verbal tactics common to proponents of totalitarian regimes. Because that is what I am really allergic to.

EDIT: Also, no, free speech is not the reason Nazis were able to rise to power in the Weimar Republic. It may have helped, but it will have happened without free speech as well. Structural and other problems of the Weimar Republic were simply too deep. Probably the biggest problem was extensive terrorist activity by the Communist Party - that is what, alongside presence of the Soviet Union (which sponsored said terrorist activity), truly helped push people into arms of the Nazi Party.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Aldarion

[Lee-Sensei]

On 11/12/2023 at 7:29 AM, Gilbert Green said:

What was fake about the marriage?  Jaime never claimed it was part of the plan.  It was Tyrion's idea.  She agreed.  And they both said their vows.  She never broke her vows, and Jaime never claimed she ever did.  Only one person broke his vows and that was Tyrion.

Calling her a "prostitute" is just calling her names; which is especially funny since she was a child prostitute, still a virgin, procured from a human-trafficking pimp.  And in the end even that was not true, but so what if it was?

Why would he seek her out?  Maybe to honor the vows he made to her?  Failing that, maybe to do something else to make it up to her for the horrors his family inflicted on her?  Maybe check to make sure those two weeks of "fake" marriage had not gotten her pregnant.

I meant fake married as in there was no love in the marriage as far as he's aware. It was a trick played on him by his father and Jaime. It's not calling her names.

That's what he believed she was. Again, Tyrion was even younger than she was. It's not like he was some 50 year old skeeve. He was 13.

The vows he made in a scam marriage? Make it up to her for what? As far as he knew, she was paid to play him.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Lee-Sensei

[Gilbert Green]

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

I meant fake married as in there was no love in the marriage as far as he's aware..

Certainly no love on his end.  If you meant that he did not love her, then that is obviously true, based on what he did to her.  And the fact remains that she never brokeher vows, and Jaime never claimed she broker her vows.  Tyrion broke his vows.

As for him thinking that she married him for his gold, there is obviously an issue there.  Women whose destiny is to bear children do take a man's means into account, and that does not make them evil, especially as he was the one who proposed.  And the elephant in the room is that Jaime had already taken Kingsguard vows, meaning that Tyrion hoped for Casterly Rock if he did not displease his father.  So in the end, alot of gold was at stake.

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

It was a trick played on him by his father and Jaime.

The only trick Jaime claimed to have played was procuring a virgin for him to use.  Marrying her after he used her was his own idea.  But of course his vows meant nothing, as we have seen.

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

It's not calling her names.

That's what he believed she was.

A virgin?   Yes, he knew she was a virgin.  Was there some other word you had in mind?  But you're not calling her names?

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Again, Tyrion was even younger than she was. It's not like he was some 50 year old skeeve. He was 13..

I have not the slightest idea what your point is.   They were about the same age.  She kept her vows.  He broke his.

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

The vows he made in a scam marriage? Make it up to her for what?

For abandoning his wife.  For not standing up to his father.  For participating in her gang rape.

"Scam marriage" you call it.  It was certainly a scam on Tyrion's end.

12 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

As far as he knew, she was paid to play him.

Who cares how much Tyrion thinks Jaime paid some human-trafficking pimp.  That is not the issue.

The issue is that Tyrion did not love Tysha.  He merely loved the idea that Tysha loved him.  And the suggestion that his Casterly Rock gold might be a factor in her acceptance of his marriage proposal sent him into a Leprechaun rage.  NOT ME GOLD.  So he gang raped her.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Gilbert Green said:

Certainly no love on his end.  If you meant that he did not love her, then that is obviously true, based on what he did to her.  And the fact remains that she never brokeher vows, and Jaime never claimed she broker her vows.  Tyrion broke his vows.

As for him thinking that she married him for his gold, there is obviously an issue there.  Women whose destiny is to bear children do take a man's means into account, and that does not make them evil, especially as he was the one who proposed.  And the elephant in the room is that Jaime had already taken Kingsguard vows, meaning that Tyrion hoped for Casterly Rock if he did not displease his father.  So in the end, alot of gold was at stake.

 

I don't think anyone is going to defend what Tyrion did to Tysha, except to the extent that (rather like with Theon and Jeyne Poole, one could conceivably argue he was coerced into it and it wasn't really consensual on his part).

But I do think that "scam marriage" is a more or less accurate description of what he thought happened. The marriage itself may have been legally legit, but he believed he had been lured into it under false pretences by someone who was cynically taking advantage of his naivete and inexperience to (presumably) extort money from the Lannisters via blackmail over the resulting scandal. Marriages for love are one thing but he doesn't think that's what happened: he thinks Jaime hired her to give him a good time, and she exploited the situation, especially since he was probably drunk at the time. 

Based on what he was told by Tywin and Jaime, it was entirely reasonable and fair for Tyrion to be heartbroken and angry: he had thought that someone loved him for who he was, and it turns out that they were basically running a con. Dissolving the marriage, hardening his heart against her, and throwing her out on her ear, is a fairly reasonable response. What Tywin did would not have been, even if the story were true.

[Lee-Sensei]

2 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

Certainly no love on his end.  If you meant that he did not love her, then that is obviously true, based on what he did to her.  And the fact remains that she never brokeher vows, and Jaime never claimed she broker her vows.  Tyrion broke his vows.

As for him thinking that she married him for his gold, there is obviously an issue there.  Women whose destiny is to bear children do take a man's means into account, and that does not make them evil, especially as he was the one who proposed.  And the elephant in the room is that Jaime had already taken Kingsguard vows, meaning that Tyrion hoped for Casterly Rock if he did not displease his father.  So in the end, alot of gold was at stake.

The only trick Jaime claimed to have played was procuring a virgin for him to use.  Marrying her after he used her was his own idea.  But of course his vows meant nothing, as we have seen.

A virgin?   Yes, he knew she was a virgin.  Was there some other word you had in mind?  But you're not calling her names?

I have not the slightest idea what your point is.   They were about the same age.  She kept her vows.  He broke his.

For abandoning his wife.  For not standing up to his father.  For participating in her gang rape.

"Scam marriage" you call it.  It was certainly a scam on Tyrion's end.

Who cares how much Tyrion thinks Jaime paid some human-trafficking pimp.  That is not the issue.

The issue is that Tyrion did not love Tysha.  He merely loved the idea that Tysha loved him.  And the suggestion that his Casterly Rock gold might be a factor in her acceptance of his marriage proposal sent him into a Leprechaun rage.  NOT ME GOLD.  So he gang raped her.

No. I mean that she was paid. That's the point. No one would ever love him genuinely. The best he could hope for was to pay for a woman, because he's an ugly dwarf. She didn't love him (and he's not entitled to her love), so why would he owe her anything.

No. He believed that she was a prostitute.

As far as he was aware, she was working. He didn't abandon his wife, because the marriage was false.

That's a warped view of events. He loved her until he was told that she was a paid prostitute that didn't actually love him.

@Alester Florent You said it much better than me.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Lee-Sensei

[Gilbert Green]

14 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

No. I mean that she was paid. That's the point. No one would ever love him genuinely. The best he could hope for was to pay for a woman, because he's an ugly dwarf. She didn't love him (and he's not entitled to her love), so why would he owe her anything.

No. He believed that she was a prostitute.

As far as he was aware, she was working. He didn't abandon his wife, because the marriage was false.

That's a warped view of events. He loved her until he was told that she was a paid prostitute that didn't actually love him.

@Alester Florent You said it much better than me.

The entire premise of this conversation is Tyrion's bottomless abyss of self-pity, according to which others owe him everything, and he owes them nothing.  But somehow it's okay when you say it but not when I say it.

I mean, I agree with you.  Tyrion wants a goddess from heaven who will come down and offer him absolute unconditional love and ask nothing in return.  Especially not a share of his precious gold.   So when he suspects his wife may have a few selfish needs of her own, he turns on her and gang rapes her.

You say she was paid?  When did that happen?  Seems more likely the story was that Jaime paid her pimp for the one night.  Virgin prostitutes don't tend to be free agents.   Or are you talking about the time that Tyrion and the soldiers threw money at her while gang-raping her?

The marriage was Tyrion's idea.  Tyrion knows this.  Or does he think that Jaime and the pimp were performing Jedi mind tricks on him from the bushes.   Who was it got the Septon drunk enough to marry them?   I think this was Tyrion and Tyrion knows perfectly well that this was Tyrion.  He does not think it was a conspiracy of Jaime and the pimp.

You keep saying "he thought she was a prostitute".  Good grief.  He thought she was a VIRGIN prostitute, who married her first and only customer.  That's about as monogamous as you can possibly get.  Even if she had slept with another man before she married him, that would hardly be grounds for annulment.   But Tyrion was Tysha's first and only, and that is somehow not good enough?  He knew he had saved her from bandits.  What possible difference does it make if he also saved her from a pimp?

Yes, his love for her was conditional on her loving him unconditionally.  And that's obviously a highly unequal arrangement.  But somehow it's okay when you say it but not when I say it.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[Gilbert Green]

16 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

I don't think anyone is going to defend what Tyrion did to Tysha, except to the extent that (rather like with Theon and Jeyne Poole, one could conceivably argue he was coerced into it and it wasn't really consensual on his part).

How exactly was he "coerced"?  Fans build fantasies around this, but the books provide no actual evidence.  Shae once asked him, "What's he going to do, spank you?"  So he hit her.  Draw your own conclusions, but I think he does not have an answer.  Not a good one anyway.  And that is why he hit her.

The elephant in the room is that Tyrion wants his father's favor and his father's gold.  And that is why he is not willing to stand up to his father on behalf of the woman in his life.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[mormont]

[mod] Since it has come up, I want to offer a reminder/clarification on the topic of rape, specifically.

Rape occurs in the books and so there will, inevitably, be some discussion of rape on the board. However, it is a sensitive subject and we expect users to approach it as such. The board is public, every thread is read by more than those posting in it, and so your words may be read by those who have been victims of rape and sexual assault. They should be written with that in mind.

We don't expect to see people bickering and arguing over definitions of rape as if it was an intellectual exercise, not a real life trauma, for example. That is crass and insensitive.

We also ask you to bear in mind that whatever you believe about 'medieval' attitudes to rape - a much more varied and complicated topic than most of those who bring it up usually seem to understand - these books aren't about medieval Europe. Westeros is a fantasy setting, written by a modern writer for a modern audience. Whatever you think medieval people 'would have' thought, you are talking to and in front of modern people, not medieval people. The idea that you should or that the author intends you to 'disconnect' yourself from modern morality in reading these books is pernicious and silly. Don't do that. It will lead you into discussing the topic in a way that is inconsiderate of other users. And that will lead to you getting into trouble with the moderators.

Hopefully, that is clear, but if anyone has any questions they can PM me. If they want to argue about it, please don't bother. This is the position we take after years of experience - you have nothing to say we haven't heard before.

Thank you. [/mod]

[SeanF]

I view Tyrion as, very much, the Walter White of the series.  You can empathise with Walter, you can recognise he does have moments of humanity, you can see that many of the people he destroys are much worse than he is.  But, ultimately, Walter is driven by his anger, his pride, and his bitterness.  As is Tyrion.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

On 11/16/2023 at 7:15 PM, SeanF said:

I view Tyrion as, very much, the Walter White of the series.  You can empathise with Walter, you can recognise he does have moments of humanity, you can see that many of the people he destroys are much worse than he is.  But, ultimately, Walter is driven by his anger, his pride, and his bitterness.  As is Tyrion.

You know who I was also thinking is similar. I am currently rewatching Westworld, and William is a lot like Tyrion (up tell the last episode of season 1, where we realize he is the expressly villainous "Man in Black"). I wish the show had taken a more Tyrion-esq approach to him. It would be more interesting to deconstruct how he is still using Dolores and ignoring her wants/needs (using her for his own story, without considering what she wants) without having to make him expressly and obviously a semi-one dimensional villain. I always felt like Westworld had 5 very interesting characters (Dolores, Maeve, Bernard, Ford, and William) and one of them they just dropped the ball on (William). 

[Gilbert Green]

On 11/16/2023 at 5:15 AM, SeanF said:

I view Tyrion as, very much, the Walter White of the series.  You can empathise with Walter, you can recognise he does have moments of humanity, you can see that many of the people he destroys are much worse than he is.  But, ultimately, Walter is driven by his anger, his pride, and his bitterness.  As is Tyrion.

I never saw "Breaking Bad".  But it is called "Breaking Bad".  The entire premise, as understand it, is that the protagonist is, or is becoming, a villain

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

I never saw "Breaking Bad".  But it is called "Breaking Bad".  The entire premise, as understand it, is that the protagonist is, or is becoming, a villain

It's a case of either power corrupts, or power reveals (I incline towards the latter).  Walter is a villain protagonist.

[Wall Flower]

On 11/16/2023 at 4:35 PM, Gilbert Green said:

How exactly was he "coerced"?  Fans build fantasies around this, but the books provide no actual evidence.  Shae once asked him, "What's he going to do, spank you?"  So he hit her.  Draw your own conclusions, but I think he does not have an answer.  Not a good one anyway.  And that is why he hit her.

The elephant in the room is that Tyrion wants his father's favor and his father's gold.  And that is why he is not willing to stand up to his father on behalf of the woman in his life.

At the risk of adding to the controversy, I completely disagree with this view. As others have noted, Tyrion was at thirteen barely a teenager and a disabled one at that. He was brought in to watch his young wife gang raped by a barrack full of soldiers. This was a horrifying and brutal demonstration of his father's power. Like any child or teenager in a sexually abusive situation, it's wrong to say that coercion or an enormous power differential don't exist just because there's no knife at the throat.

When Tyrion says that his cock betrayed him, that's him taking on the guilt that rightly belongs to the abuser in this situation - Tywin.

Tywin has Jaime lie about Tysha because, like any abuser, he wants to psychologically destroy his chosen victim - to make Tyrion believe that he is worthless and unlovable. Tywin is a master of manipulation and gaslighting. He's so good at it that a lot of readers apparently take him at his own projected image of a hard man doing what's necessary instead of the monstrous villain he really is.

[Gilbert Green]

31 minutes ago, Wall Flower said:

At the risk of adding to the controversy, I completely disagree with this view. As others have noted, Tyrion was at thirteen barely a teenager and a disabled one at that. He was brought in to watch his young wife gang raped by a barrack full of soldiers. This was a horrifying and brutal demonstration of his father's power. Like any child or teenager in a sexually abusive situation, it's wrong to say that coercion or an enormous power differential don't exist just because there's no knife at the throat.

When Tyrion says that his cock betrayed him, that's him taking on the guilt that rightly belongs to the abuser in this situation - Tywin.

Tywin has Jaime lie about Tysha because, like any abuser, he wants to psychologically destroy his chosen victim - to make Tyrion believe that he is worthless and unlovable. Tywin is a master of manipulation and gaslighting. He's so good at it that a lot of readers apparently take him at his own projected image of a hard man doing what's necessary instead of the monstrous villain he really is.

Maybe some day GRRM will give us a Gargon POV.  And then we will learn that Gargon felt sorry for himself too.

I'm not saying there is nothing to what you say.  But you seem to be losing track of what happened to Tysha.  It's not just about what happened that day.  Tyrion has spend the last 13 years feeling sorry for himself.  And not lifting a finger to look for or make things up to the girl he helped gang-rape.   Because, as one of the other posters here put it, what's in it for him?

I'm not saying we can't have a small amount of sympathy for persons who have done terrible things.  I'm not saying that some villains cannot be redeemed and forgiven.  But are we not losing track of what he did to Tysha?

Sure, we could take his youth and immaturity into account.  If he had shown any sign of turning into a better person in the 13 years since.  But has he?

Edited November 21, 2023 by Gilbert Green

[Him of Many Faces]

Weird how the fandom has so little love for Tyrion. Maybe that's why D&D made him a saint. Personally I read him as a wicked but not inherently evil character. He has just as much good in him than bad. And I really love his chapters in Dance when he is fully chaotic, it's some of the best writing in ASOIAF.