The Official Tyrion Lannister appreciation thread

[headtrip_honey]

Lady of the North, I am out of "likes" for the day, but I applaud you.

[Whatever]

That is certainly true, but I don't think he'll find love in any such relationships. And they will not be healthier than his relationship with Shae even though I'd hope that he won't make a habit of strangling prostitutes/lovers. I was speculating on a relationship that isn't doomed from the start. At least not doomed to destroy at least one of the participants.

His relationship with Shae wasn't healty, since he wasn't in a real relationship with her, but with the woman he wanted her to be. And of course he won't find any love, this is why I say he's delusional

[LadyoftheNorth72]

Thank you, HH :)

[Woman of War]

ok, only a short remark: I have worked as a social worker/instructor for women who had left their abusive husbands or partners after a long time of working as a housewife and they were to start a qualification programme for being reintegrated into a job. Many of them had no professional qualification at all. But first we taught them "survival skills", sometimes even how to open a bank account or how to deal with buerocracy or doctors, and we did a lot of talking. The worst, the saddest cases where I could not sleep were those when the women stiil really loved their abuser, wanted to save him, to help, to redeem him before helping themselves. But the abusive partner is the one to take the responsibility to change, to go to therapy. And the woman HAS to be firm to send him away as long as he is not willing to change, for her own survival., and never to believe him before he has proven the change. So she has to learn some considerable strength or to rediscover it. And maybe you other posters understand now why I am really sensitive when it comes to child abuse , abuse of both boys and girls.

And I learned that the men may seem totally normal to outsiders, they often are no freaks but themselves in need of therapeutic help- only not from "their" women, but as their own responsibility. Often, and that is no excuse but an explanation, the men have been abused as children either sexually or through physical punishment. But if you met them in the street you might take them for the nicest guy in the world-until you meet their wife.

So ,Lady of The North, I understand your rage and your hatred for institutions, your story is horrible and absurd. And given the number of female posters here, there may be some hundreds among us who had or have to suffer domestic abuse.

And I would NEVER have believed that in Norway rape in a marriage is no rape, we in Germany see Norway as paradise for women. And here the budget cuts have destroyed so many helpful social structures, the job I had back then would not even exist anymore.

Question: isn't this said in English: "I will teach you not to lie!" or "I will teach you not to touch me!" without wanting to take any responsibility myself? I mean obviously Tyrion has to learn to change himself, take responsibility etc, all that what I described, only no therapist for him. But there might be a woman who is firm to show him where her limits are.

[Alexia]

In Norway, Gender Equality Does Not Extend to the Bedroom

But Norway is still one of 127 countries in the world — including 12 members of the European Union — that do not explicitly criminalize rape within marriage, according to a survey of women’s access to justice published by U.N. Women last July.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

First, Woman of War, thank you on behalf of abused women for your work to improve their situations. There is no doubt in my mind that you did much good and helped a lot of women.

Second, please excuse my still-burning anger over what I experienced. I am sure you are correct that there are abused women who simply cannot or will not see the forest for the trees, and I am sure that was frustrating to you as a social worker to try to deal with. I think most of us have known at least one woman of the type you describe ... The ones who will simply continue to say "but I love him" until she ends up in the morgue or he ends up in prison, or both. I cannot deny that they exist.

My anger is over the extreme lack of resources for the women who really and truly do want out, and cannot get there due to reasons like I experienced.

And yes, my experience was horrible and absurd ...but it was also one of the triumphs. I came out of it alive and well, went on to become a happy and content single mom for a while, and five years later met the love of my life who would sooner die than hurt me in any way. So even though I had to cobble my solution together with duct tape and bailing wire, in the end it is absolutely a success story and hopefully one of hope for anyone still stuck in their situation. And I still thank God (how is this for a sneaky way to tie this into the thread) that I have lived in a time when progress is being made, and it is no longer considered acceptable, understandable or legal for a man to beat his wife. If I had lived in Westeros ...well, I guess I would be living in Westeros with my abusive husband, our increasing brood of kids, and a very pissed off golden retriever.

[Son of Jon Snarkgaryen]

@ Lady of the North & Woman of War: As this is my thread, and I like Tyrion (though I admit he's got a nasty temper) - or maybe just really want to like him, I feel like I should chime in here. I am a guy, so I don't know if all you ladies would accept what I have to say on the matter, but I've worked in social work as well - with abused women and children, and in shelters for the needy. I suffered some abuse as a child as well, though not of the sexual nature, thank God. I suffered parental and sibling (much older siblings) abuse. So please don't mistake my empathy for Tyrion as any sort of condoning of his abuse or murder of Shae, or his debacle with Tysha - or of his deviant whoring in general. Rather, I'm saying that he's suffered abuse as well, and he's a product of a corrupt familial system.

As for Woman of War's idea that he needs a strong woman/lover to teach him how to control himself, and to teach him limits, I once thought that as well. But, really, I think that some of his issues stem from never having a positive female influence while growing up. All he had was Tywin, who hated him, and Cersei's posionous hatred of him. He had no positive female to balance it out - no mother. Some posters may crudely reduce this to "mommy issues". And I suppose in a sense it is, but maybe what Tyrion needs is some celibacy for a while. As much as I like his irreverant and in-your-face refusal to allow anyone to keep him down, having access to whores/sex only enables him to be abusive in ways that perpetuate that pattern. Essentially, he needs a female figure that is a mother-figure or friend or role-model, as odd as that sounds.... Whether Dany can fill that role, or Septa Lemore, or anyone, only time and GRRM will tell, I suppose.....

[Woman of War]

Daeneris really could be a no sex friend, given that her experience is not so different. She grew up without mother as well and was mistreated by her only remaining relative, Viserys. And she was reduced to her body as well, though in a totally different manner, as sex bait for Drogo. It is indeed hard to imagine for me what it might do to a person to grow up without any mother at all, not even a stepmother or a friendly aunt. There probably was virtually no one for Daeneris. And given the westerosi superstitions against cripples Tyrions wetnurse and nanny may only have touched him because they were paid for it, even his very first woman he had contact with was paid to hide her dislike for that misshappen child, but even the smallest baby would feel that. You would think this is stuff to form a sociopath, compared to that Tyrion is still relatively normal.

[Son of Jon Snarkgaryen]

compared to that Tyrion is still relatively normal.

Well, he was relatively normal, until his downward spiral in ADWD, which I think began in ASOS when he had a mental break at seeing Oberyn killed by Gregor, and he sort of snapped and laughed hysterically, because he knew his last hope was gone.....

[LadyoftheNorth72]

SoJS ...sorry we kind of jacked your thread there for a while. And there is no reason you cannot chimebin on abuse of any variety ...saying you cannot because you are a man would be the sexism that we are often complaining about. :)

There is no doubt that Tyrion, of all the characters, is probably the most demonstrably a predictable product of his atrocious upbringing. I can understand what he went through, and sympathize for the abused child he was, without condoning his adult behavior. My DH was one of those kids who were picked on a lot through middle school, and to make up for it he developed a very biting wit and the ability to make people laugh (sometimes, unfortunately, at someone else's expense). When he grew into a hawt strapping 6'2" cutie in HS, suddenly he sure did have a lot of friends ... But that biting wit has never fully gone away. He is mature enough now to try to be very careful not to be funny at other people's expense, but those defense mechanisms learned in childhood are damned hard to let go of.

My problem with Tyrion is not so much his insults and witticisms. My problem is his complete lack of self awareness. None of us ever achieves perfect self awareness, but if we are smart we at least make a concerted effort to get to know ourselves honestly, fix what is broken that can be fixed, and try to not allow the things that cannot be fixed to be taken out on those around us. Tyrion does a hell of a lot of thinking, for someone who has never apparently turned that high-powered insight inward. He can explain to Jon with perfect clarity and well thought out reasoning the answer to "why I read so much.". If Jon jad instead asked him, "why do you whore so much," he would likely have gotten no more than a sarcastic retort and a sardonic smile for his trouble, because Tyrion apparently has never troubled himself to wonder much why he is what he is (beyond being very well versed in who he blames for the mess).

My mother has always had a saying (she comes up with these jewels sometimes): you either grow up *because* of your parents, or *despite* them. And that is a four sided coin. A good person could be raised by great parents and turn out great because of that, or be raised by really lousy parents and choose to be good regardless. And the not-so-nice adult has made the same choice ...to turn out lousy despite a good upbringing, or use a lousy upbringing as an excuse to be a lousy person.

Tyrion may have been dealt a bad hand, but the cards have been all under his control for some time now. Whatever issues he had with his parents or lack thereof, it is time to grow up now.

[Son of Jon Snarkgaryen]

LotN: there's no such thing as jacking/stealing threads... :thumbsup: All civil comments are welcome.

Your mom sounds like a smart woman!

As for Tyrion. Yes, I still like him, but I agree with you. He's a grown man, and he better shape the hell up real soon (TWOW), or I think I'll start to sour on him..... even worse than I soured on Dany in ADWD, despite her choice in men (Daario - speaking of bad relationships :ack: ).

[mor2]

@LadyoftheNorth72, that's a very good post but I dont think it's accurate, Tyrion isn't immature or lacks self awareness, he is just bitter. sure he has childhood issues like most of the other POV's but he never actually blamed anyone for his mess, for long time he tried to live to his family name, doing what he had to, despite all the hardship piled in his way by everyone and he made it work, but unlike Jon who seem to achieve something, Tyrion despite his sacrifice, had everything taken from him, learning that everything was a lie and it hadn't had to be this way, that he was responsible for sending away the only person who loved him for who he was and the only person who cared for him (his brother) betrayed his trust.

only now comes the part of blame and petty etc... inline with the GRRM round of bad cards dealt in aDwD. nevertheless I am sure that he is perfectly aware why he whores so much(thou I am not sure that he does, I think that grrm and in the TV show, focused on that little to much inline with the dwarf stereotyp), but being aware and talking about/fixing it is another thing altogether, just ask any mature self aware fat person why is fat and see what answer you'll get ;)

[Woman of War]

@ Mor2:

I think you have a point there, when it comes to Tyrions "whoring". I am in no mood to do the whoring- or sex- statistics concerning Tyrion but if I think it over it is not THAT frequent that he has sex, not even when he had Shae handy because of lack of time, being someone with a time-consuming job. And while we follow him travelling there is even deplorably little occasion. It is maybe indeed HBO that makes him a sex maniac - and his own bragging. Well, that bragging, all women believe this is what men do when they are with other men, for obvious reasons we have never witnessed it. And I can imagine that someone like Tyrion who is belittled and laughed at, may feel the need to tell other men that he is well equipped and that his sexual prowess is just fine. The boys' game, comparing cocks., certainly a sign of immaturity and lack of self-confidence ( ahem, in any man) but surely a sign that Tyrion is constantly fighting for recognition.

I recently saw a documentary about Michel Petrucciani, a jazz pianist who suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta, he learned to walk very late, his body stayed small and seriously malformed, his face was not exactly pretty, he certainly was more handicapped than the character Tyrion is described. A genious musician, he died more than ten years ago, so I cannot shame him if I mention him here.

The point is: that man obvoiously was extremely charming, married I don't know how many times. The documentary described his lovelife in a rather elaborate manner and I was seriously wondering if they had felt that need with any "normal"looking musician. ( look, that man is sooo great, he can have so many attractive and interesting women, although he is so ugly ) Actually his lovelife seemed rather normal to me, only he obviously had that knack to marry EVERY woman he fell in love with, you can speculate now, this was because he wanted to keep them or to show his love to the public or...or... Would anyone be interested in his lovelife if the documentary had not made such a big thing of it? This character reminded me very much of Tyrion. ( dear dead Mr. Petrucciani, I in no way want to accuse you of a weird sex life, my apologies )

And I come back to my own argument in post # 38 on page two: we can judge Tyrion's lovelife problems because we have so much information about him.

I wonder what other people did in medieval times. if women wanted sex and had no one, they had to find a lover, with all the consequences of being judged as a whore. Many men in westeros, especially in wartimes, lived under very unstable conditions, no way to have a happy family life. There was a lot of prostituion demand, since obviously it was more or less expected of every man "in need" to buy sexual services, and a lot of supply because women on their own had few other means to earn money.

So we can assume that most male characters regularly or from time to time bought sex. There was even a huge market for child sex. Tyrion was no exception and his father with his outrage an ordinary hypocrite, as we know. Only via Tyrion's POV we know about all those atrocities in ASIOAF world sex market, committed by probably all johns towards all sex workers

@ LotN,

Tyrion does a hell of a lot of thinking, for someone who has never apparently turned that high-powered insight inward. He can explain to Jon with perfect clarity and well thought out reasoning the answer to "why I read so much.". If Jon jad instead asked him, "why do you whore so much," he would likely have gotten no more than a sarcastic retort and a sardonic smile for his trouble, because Tyrion apparently has never troubled himself to wonder much why he is what he is (beyond being very well versed in who he blames for the mess).

agree in a way. We can accuse that intelligent man Tyrion of not being aware of the violent and abusive structures in the westerosi and essosi sex market, he should have the political awareness of seeing trough the structures, meaning we could expect more insight from him than from, say Bronn or Sandor, because he is so very bright. But experience in RL teaches that even the brightest persons, fail deplorably when it comes to analysing themselves! This may count for sexuality more than for other issues because there is the shame factor. But the smart ones are better in finding coverup excuses, handy explanations and weird constructions why it can't be otherwise.

If someone asked Sandor ( an as well ugly guy who uses whores, given textual evidence ) why he is " whoring" he'd answer: " don't know, bugger off! " Tyrion would throw a more or less rude joke back into your face, and if pressed further, come up with a rather funny explanation of hollow words.

Of course his attitude towards love and sex is sad, but at least, and that is more than all those travelling male caricatures have to offer, he still has emotions enough to hope for love, even if at the moment he may not be able to realize that desire. In his present emotional situation he is more likely to put off any woman he might come to admire. ( "would I want a woman who sinks so low to want me?" the utter expression of self-hatred, and he must feel a lot of it, if only for the Tyrion-Tysha rape-child abuse and his part in it )

[voodooqueen126]

ok, only a short remark: I have worked as a social worker/instructor for women who had left their abusive husbands or partners after a long time of working as a housewife and they were to start a qualification programme for being reintegrated into a job. Many of them had no professional qualification at all. But first we taught them "survival skills", sometimes even how to open a bank account or how to deal with buerocracy or doctors, and we did a lot of talking. The worst, the saddest cases where I could not sleep were those when the women stiil really loved their abuser, wanted to save him, to help, to redeem him before helping themselves. But the abusive partner is the one to take the responsibility to change, to go to therapy. And the woman HAS to be firm to send him away as long as he is not willing to change, for her own survival., and never to believe him before he has proven the change. So she has to learn some considerable strength or to rediscover it. And maybe you other posters understand now why I am really sensitive when it comes to child abuse , abuse of both boys and girls.

And I learned that the men may seem totally normal to outsiders, they often are no freaks but themselves in need of therapeutic help- only not from "their" women, but as their own responsibility. Often, and that is no excuse but an explanation, the men have been abused as children either sexually or through physical punishment. But if you met them in the street you might take them for the nicest guy in the world-until you meet their wife.

So ,Lady of The North, I understand your rage and your hatred for institutions, your story is horrible and absurd. And given the number of female posters here, there may be some hundreds among us who had or have to suffer domestic abuse.

And I would NEVER have believed that in Norway rape in a marriage is no rape, we in Germany see Norway as paradise for women. And here the budget cuts have destroyed so many helpful social structures, the job I had back then would not even exist anymore.

Question: isn't this said in English: "I will teach you not to lie!" or "I will teach you not to touch me!" without wanting to take any responsibility myself? I mean obviously Tyrion has to learn to change himself, take responsibility etc, all that what I described, only no therapist for him. But there might be a woman who is firm to show him where her limits are.

You did great work there.

May I ask, how would you as a German speaker pronounce the word "trayoudáki", making it obey the laws of German phonology? Preferably with a Bavarian accent...

I have asked a similar question here:

http://au.answers.ya...06041931AAcxSaW

and i explain why I ask the question here

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/50891-thread-of-the-celts/page__st__80

[Woman of War]

thank you

"trahyoudoakih" might sound a little Bavarian ( not that ANYONE from Berlin might have ANY prejudices against that funny Bavarian dialect - and vice versa )

that thread about the Celts seems to be extremely interesting, I'll read it.

[voodooqueen126]

thank you

"trahyoudoakih" might sound a little Bavarian ( not that ANYONE from Berlin might have ANY prejudices against that funny Bavarian dialect - and vice versa )

that thread about the Celts seems to be extremely interesting, I'll read it.

lol of course no Berliner would have any prejudices against someone from Bavaria, why would I think that?

Thanks for answering the question.

The Forest of Qohor=The Black Forest in Baden-Wurttemberg

[Demojan777]

I'm new here, but I would like to chime in:

Tyrion was my favorite character from AGOT, when I first started reading the series. He reminded me a lot of Machiavelli's "The Prince", the character that Machiavelli was studying, and he was brilliant and lucky and able to use his wits and his knowledge to escape situations that seemed hopeless, grasping at every opportunity he could to survive, while also not balking from things that, until then, he seemed to have no knowledge or skill of (in that book, leading his mountain clans into battle and using his found helmet spike to best the knight who knocked him off of his horse - that is using your head).

(I was disappointed that they left all of that out in the T.V, show, watching him kick some butt instead of getting knocked out before he could even take the field would have been more entertaining and I also love the battle scenes from his POV chapters because he makes up for his short stature with courage and a deep-rooted sense of duty.)

As things progressed, he seemed the perfect thing to set KL to rights in ACOK, but some of the best people make the worst rulers, and the best intentions often lead to people hating you for the decisions you are forced to make.

He never forced Sansa to consummate their marriage, and was always kind to her.

I could go on, but nothing he's done so far has made him any less of a man (or half-man) in my eyes. I cheered him on when he killed Shae and Tywin, although Shae's death was tragic it was necessary in the context of the story.

I think, maybe he has a chance of redeeming any of the horrid things he's done (he's no saint, or else he'd be dead and also boring) with Penny. I'm not betting on it, but hopefully finding love and friendship with another dwarf, a lowborn innocent girl much like Tysha was, may go far toward making him less of a broken man.

We'll have to see how things pan out, but I'm rooting for him.

[Evamitchelle]

only now comes the part of blame and petty etc... inline with the GRRM round of bad cards dealt in aDwD. nevertheless I am sure that he is perfectly aware why he whores so much(thou I am not sure that he does, I think that grrm and in the TV show, focused on that little to much inline with the dwarf stereotyp), but being aware and talking about/fixing it is another thing altogether, just ask any mature self aware fat person why is fat and see what answer you'll get ;)

Not every fat person gorges on 3 burgers at every meal you know. Some people will never be skinny, and not for lack of trying. Whoring on the other hand is completely up to personal choice. If he wants to stop whoring he just has to stop going to brothels, easy as that. You don't become thin by not going to McDonalds.

[Tini]

Not every fat person gorges on 3 burgers at every meal you know. Some people will never be skinny, and not for lack of trying. Whoring on the other hand is completely up to personal choice. If he wants to stop whoring he just has to stop going to brothels, easy as that. You don't become thin by not going to McDonalds.

It is possible to get addicted to sex like to any other drug. I am not saying that Tyrion is a sex addict, just that giving up going to brothels might not be as easy a personal choice as it seems.

[Evamitchelle]

It is possible to get addicted to sex like to any other drug. I am not saying that Tyrion is a sex addict, just that giving up going to brothels might not be as easy a personal choice as it seems.

I don't think Tyrion is a sex addict though. It hasn't prevented him from being Hand and Master of Coins, he went almost all of GoT without having sex, same in ADwD apart from that one prostitute, he refused sex from another in Illyrio's Manse, didn't consummate his marriage with Sansa etc. He doesn't really look like a sex addict to me.