Rereading Tyrion IV (ASOS)

[Ragnorak]

Naked has a certain "dirty" connotation while Nude a more artistic one. This poem deals with the topic. The women in pornographic movies are naked, the ones in artsy French films are nude. This distinction is far more readily recognized by men because it can directly correlate to whether or not you sleep on the couch. ;)

[butterbumps!]

Naked has a certain "dirty" connotation while Nude a more artistic one. This poemdeals with the topic. The women in pornographic movies are naked, the ones in artsy French films are nude. This distinction is far more readily recognized by men because it can directly correlate to whether or not you sleep on the couch. ;)

So you've been caught redhanded with blue movies, is that the way of it? That was the most hilarious explanation, but you might be talking more about the "I'll know it when I see it" distinction of art v. porn.

I usually explain the difference with this token example: nude versus naked

I think it's stems from an issue of gaze and fetishization-- I think that can still happen in porn. I think it does boil down to "eroticism" the way A Wildling mentioned. I see "nude" as geared to self-presentation that skews toward someone else's pleasure or image. I see "naked" as a more "honest" or objective, "this is me, I will not pretend I am here for your pleasure."

[Lykos]

It seems naked is a very general term as in naked walls, while nude is the willing/purposefully presentation of the human body as a subject not an object? Maybe we should have taken this here since we´re still in Storm and don´t discuss anything spoilery there would be no harm.

[Blisscraft]

If we backtrack a little to the last chapter, Cersei' reaction to being wed to Willas is a full blown rejection. Part of her reaction seems to be the fact that she is surprised by the idea. Tywin, in his all mighty diabolicalness has caught her off guard. This is part of Tywin's true genius at manipulation. Just when one of his children, or anyone else for that matter, relaxes he orders something. The reaction is inevitably, "What!!!"

Cersei uses this same Tywin technique with Sansa. The fantastic dress, her bath, her shoes, her perfume, the moonstones, even Cersei's approval at her beauty simply seem to lull Sansa, and us readers, into a state of respose, only to be rudely awakened by the order to marry, Tyrion. The ritual of preparation is so expertly portrayed, that the only conceivable out come should be, ought to be someone worthy of Sansa. But, SURPRISE. (And, I say to myself, SHIT!). Also, like Tywin, Cersei uses the threat of humiliate before the smallfolk to bring Sansa around to acquiece. It's amazing how well this works.

Now they only thing left to Sansa is concession. She will do her duty. However, this is the part that I really like, at the ceremony, Sansa will not bend. Tyrion tugs and tugs until the tittering begins, but Sansa maintains her small rebellion. The small rebellion carries forward to the Feast when she dances anyway, in spite of the appearance of impropriety. Finally, the small rebellion continues in the bedding. Yes, she takes off her clothes, naked as a jaybird, but she suggests that she may never want to have sex with Tyrion. She needn't be so honest and yet she throws off her courtesy, along with her clothing, and reveals a truly naked Sansa: Rebel with a Cause.

[Ragnorak]

Blue movies. I would never, ever.. get caught. As someone who has watched vast numbers of artistic French movies, many with more sex and nudity than a Roman orgy, I have never once been asked the loaded and dreaded "So... do you think she's attractive" question when there have been subtitles.

[Woman of War]

I loved that debate about naked and nude and all those examples, thank you, you have been so interesting and helpful.

You see, I am a figurative painter myself who happens to work very much with the images of female, of age and sexuality in her works and I have so often struggled with terminology when I had to write English catalogue texts or some other wiseass stuff about my own work.

So, sorry I cannot give you examples of my own works here but, as my children explained to me, it is bad manners and a breach of forum netiquette to give too many informations that can be traced back, a shame. (the little girl in my avatar is a small detail from one of mine's)

But sorry, Brashcandy and others, I still am not convinced. Sansa is not actively trying to defy Tyrion, she is tied to her own ideas of duty, that is, not her genuinely own ideas but to the internalized expectations towards noblewomen in general, given to her by the Septa Mordanes of that world. No, she is not making use of her small freedom, of her agency here to show her disgust, her outrage and the wrongness of the situation to Tyrion, non verbally and only veiled by body language. She is not defying patriarchy here by trying not to go along with its cruelties. Sansa fully accepts those norms, she has been brought up with them and has always felt herself to be on the winning side of the system as promising noble girl: you are given a husband, you will make him happy and this will make you happy! Only in her case this husband is way out of the norm by being part of the enemy and singularly ugly. She is not asking " What have I done to the Lannisters that they are doing this to me?", this would be a very good question since she herself has not done anything to them. She asks the gods, the givers of anonymous fate, how she might have sinned. It is not humans in the person of Tyrion anymore where she could be legitimately furious. She does not allow herself this very understandable rage since a good wife, and this child wants to play the good wife, goes along with marital duties. Only, as I wrote, her body language betrays her, her body is more clever than her psychological mindset, and her disgust is obvious.

The worst terror regime, here Westerosi patriarchy, is when it even takes the agency of legitimate outrage and conscious resistance from its victims, turning them into willing accomplices of their own humiliation.

And, butterbumps, Tyrion does not want her to be the little girl again, he sees that she is in fact a child caught in a situation with no way out. As un-feminist as it reads: this perception of Tyrion lets her muster the courage

[Ragnorak]

@Blisscraft

This is such an internal chapter for Sansa and trying to focus on the Lannister piece really drives home how divorced (if you can excuse the pun) her experience is from those around her. I was repeatedly pulled in to Sansa's internal experience which made it hard to infer the Lannister pieces because they are just so far apart. I think that disconnect is telling. I don't think I ever picked up the irony of Sansa wanting to marry Willas while Cersei is dreading that same marriage before now and I think that's because of the powerful gravitational pull of Sansa's internal perspective.

The only real connection between Sansa's experiences and the Lannisters' is that her suffering here is a crossroads between what Tywin is currently inflicting on Tyrion and Cersei as well as what he has previously inflicted on them. WK, had a thread about the parallels between Tyrion and Cersei and we see some here. Both had an earlier love that was ruined or tainted by Tywin, both continue to try and relive that love in secret, and that "secret" is why they are being forced to marry against their wishes-- Tyrion's whoring and Cersei's breeding as disproof of Jaime. It is Tywin's actions that lead them both to inflict things upon Sansa just as Tywin has led them to this point where they inflcit things upon each other.

Cersei's projection of her own future marriage is to show dignity, the external trappings of Lannister power, in front of the smallfolk. What sways Sansa isn't Cersei but Kettleblacks's wolf's are supposed to be brave comment. Both Cersei and Sansa embrace their Houses as a way to cope, but Sansa's is internal bravery while Cersei's is external trappings. Those external trappings by their nature make exclude embracing Tyrion. Sansa humiliates Tyrion by not kneeling, but when faced with another human's suffering caused by her pride she does kneel for the kiss out of empathy. In the face of suffering inflicted by Tywin on all three of them only Sansa, the actual enemy, is identified with and allied with in the minds of both Lannister siblings against Tywin. The bond they both feel with Sansa is the very sibling bond they ought to feel with each other against Tywin. In this sense, Sansa stands in as an explanation for the Lannister family breakdown and an ideal of proper sibling behavior.

It is hard to see that they both identify with Sansa given her internal experiences in this chapter and that they are both heaping suffering on her.

[Blisscraft]

WOW - Wow, beautiful work on small display. I have always liked your avatar and wondered where it came from.

I understand the need to hold back information online and, like you, I was reluctant to share my profession. Yet, as I progressed through rereads, I felt the need to explain a bit about why what I did and continue to do as a vocation, and how it affects my analysis.

Ragnorak - Don't really know how to answer you. I will try to reiterate my points more clearly. First, I agree that as presented in the text, the reader is given the opportunity to compare Cersei and Sansa. Both women are being manipulated by Tywin into marriages. Cersei is confronted directly with the prospect in front of her family after the small council meeting. Sansa's marriage is there, too. However, it is Tyrion's marriage to Sansa in the chapter, not the other way around. Tyrion's POV is revelation of what an evil genius Tywin is at manupulating everyone. Also, it reveals one of Tywin's very important methods of achieving his ends: the element of surprise.

The second point is really how Cersei adopts the Tywin "surprise" approach with Sansa. It's a trickle down effect.

I do not disagree that Sansa is compassionate with regard to Tyrion. She is, yet I think her little rebellions reveal unconscious displeasure at being so badly used by her captors, as well as great strength and composure. She, unlike Cersei, does not present an overt display. She her reactions (and I mean this in the most complementary way) are lady-like as opposed to lion-like. However, Sansa's small rebellions are far more powerful in the long run than Cersei's because they garner respect rather than create fear of reprisal. Sansa is civilly disobedient. In that regard, Sansa is very much a Stark.

[Blisscraft]

Sorry about the double post, but this is something unrelated to the last.

Yesterday, I was catching up on the Arya reread and came to the chapters in CoK where first there is Sansa meeting Dontos for the first time and his promise to take her back to Winterfell. In the next chapter, there is Arya angry and sad that Yoren did not keep his promise to take her home to Winterfell.

This confluence of promises got me to thinking about how many promises are made, which ones are fulfilled and which ones never are. Also, it got me thinking (yes, I'm sure I resemble Gendry in this, Ouch! my head hurts!), where and when and under what circumstances promises are made. For example, when Ned swears (a more solemn form of promise) that he is a traiter according to the new gods, but not the old, it's like he's crossing his fingers behind his back. That is, he really isn't swearing (promising under oath) to anything because he doesn't believe in those gods. He's performing his own small rebellion.

With regard to Sansa, the ceremony is performed in accordance with the new gods, but not the old. Sansa has been raised with both. But makes no marriage promises before the old gods to Tyrion.

This ties into the idea above that when one swears upon the honor of one's house or gods; it may not be an outright lie, but not a true promise. Someone may have there figurative fingers crossed.

[Lummel]

...So, sorry I cannot give you examples of my own works here but, as my children explained to me, it is bad manners and a breach of forum netiquette to give too many informations that can be traced back, a shame. (the little girl in my avatar is a small detail from one of mine's)...

yes? I always assumed it was something from Otto Dix, there was something about it that reminded me of his work...er I hope that was what you were aiming for...anyhow I meant that in a complimentary way :blushing:

[Ragnorak]

Blisscraft, I'm sorry if I came across as trying to contradict anything you said. I both like and agree with everything you wrote in both posts. It is Sansa's POV and Sansa's wedding. I was trying (poorly apparantly) to express how the pull of her POV and her internal experience makes it much harder than most chapters to pick up on the dynamics of the other people the POV interacts with. It was just that your very observations were why I missed things like how much Cersei identifies with Sansa.

She is doing exactly to Sansa what Tywin did to her. My prior take has always been one where this largely served to make Cersei appear unsympathetic for inflicting that which she objects to in her own life on Sansa. It is the epitome of hypocrisy. In willingly blinding myself to Sansa's perspective it now seems to me that Cersei is actually admiring Sansa for the graceful and dignified way she accepts this fate and seeing herself reflected in Sansa. Cersei's role as the Tywin here prevented me from seeing that reflection aspect before.

[Lykos]

I feel this was a great discussion, and just wanted to link to this good thread on moral imperatives, by butterbumps!. Some of us have participated in it, on the first page ( it gets derailed later,I fear ), so it might help understand some of our positions.

[Blisscraft]

No worries, Ragnorak. I knew that if you disagreed with me you'd just say so. :fencing: However, I do appreciate the clarification. I'm telling you . . . sometimes I am a little thick in the head.

[Lummel]

Tyrion IV ASOS

Overview

This is a chapter divided into three parts. Tyrion inspecting the rebuilding work that needs to be done after the battle, followed by a meeting with Symon Silver Tongue and finally another meeting with Tywin. The realm is exhausted, hungry and poor but high up in the castle a glorious feast is being prepared. Dancing bears and seven singers are practising in the background to this chapter.

Singer's Stew is born here. Some details about Valyrian swords are given.

Observations

• “While he beds Lysa Arryn and rules the Vale beside her, I get to clean up the mess he left behind him. Though at least his father was giving him significant work to do. He won't name me heir to Casterly Rock, but he'll make use of me wherever he can”
  
• “No words would ever make him fair in her eyes. Or any less a Lannister.”
  
• Tyrion gives his word as a Lannister to Symon, proving that again a Lannister always pays their debts.
  
• “The little lordlings would gladly part with their daughters should a Lannister come asking, but they cherished their old family swords” which neatly contradicts what Tywin told Tyrion in the previous chapter!
  
• Interesting how Jaime gets the better sword, but of course Tywin sees Joffrey as a mere king of Westeros and not the mighty Lord of Casterly Rock that he dreams Jaime will be.
  
• On the refusal of the Willas - Cersei match: "It is better for all of us if the offer was never made. See that you remember that, Tyrion. The offer was never made." "What offer?" Hmm and Varys reported what the Queen of Thorns told Mace Tyrell. Interesting.
  

Analysis: “a tool for every task, and a task for every tool”

This feels like a cross roads chapter to me. Past events seem to be catching up with characters and the future paths seem to snake out of it. Obviously this is a stupid observation because this must be true of almost all the chapters in the series, but I can't shake the idea.

Exposure

The theme of nakedness continues. Tyrion feels the stableboys and even the horse are laughing at him. He commands Sansa to wear bed clothes and does the same himself but even so he feels observed and watched everywhere. Why does he suddenly fear that Varys is watching him? Yet bizarrely he doesn't seem to be too fearful to meet up with Shae before marrying Sansa. Notice how Tywin has to tell Tyrion that he can dismiss the servants that Tyrion fears are spying for Cersei - it's like learnt helplessness.

Of course it doesn't help that everybody hates poor little Tyrion. The jolly young scamps throw shit at him and the gaunt people burnt out by the war “would pull me down and smash my face in with a cobblestone, as they did for Aron Santagar.”

Secrets and lies

Of course Tyrion's decision not to consummate until Sansa says yes comes back to bite Tyrion. Tyrion is surprised that Tywin is aware...but since we learn in the same chapter that Shae knew all about the marriage to Sansa in advance it seems that the Red Keep is a hot bed of rumour and gossip – at least when sex is involved. But inevitably this leads to further complications...

Buying and selling

“He had never seen markets so crowded, and for all the food the Tytells were bringing in, prices remained shockingly high” but not as high as the price that Symon Silver Tongue will try to extract for his silence – a place as one of the seven singers at Joffrey's wedding banquet. The scene of a discussion in a dismal cellar over a cup of sour wine seems to be echoed later by Brienne and Nimble Dick and Quentyn and the Tattered Prince. The odd detail of the ceiling being too low for Bronn suggests that this miserable wine sink is Tyrion's natural habit.

(notice cunning sword fashoning foreshadowing for later in this post hehe). Symon also seems to be dwarfishly short “a short man – though all men were tall to Tyrion”

This ploy is a reversal of Tywin's classic use of the Rains of Castlemere and a bard to sing it as a means to quell a restless lord – as repeated in Jaime VI AFFC. The threat of a song is enough to ensure compliance...unfortunately what Symon fails to understand is that soft power in Westeros requires at least the potential of hard power to avoid being dropped in the soup.

The description of the route taken to Symon seems to echo Tyrion's exuberant ride to Shae in Tyrion X ACOK when he met the ill fated singer the first time.

And just when you thought it was safe to go into a pot shop Symon's fate reminds me of Kvasir in the sagas who was killed by dwarves and turned into mead rather than a nice savoury bowl of brown. Of course if Martinworld was the same as that of the Brothers Grimm the eaters would all no doubt start to sing “but hands of gold are always cold”. Luckily for Tyrion things aren't quite that magical. Yet.

But although homo economicus is the ideal type that Lannisters ostensibly love to deal with that tension that Ragnorak noticed way back in AGOT between Stark and Lannister ways of acquiring and maintaining loyalty break out on to the page over Janos Slynt and the Night's Watch:

“Lord Janos is a hollow suit of armor who will sell himself to the highest bidder.”

“I count that a point in his favor. Who is like to bid higher than us?”

The Rains of Castelmere

Rings out again over the chapter when Tywin has Tyrion stay when Pycelle comes in. Why else keep Tyrion there except to signal to Pycelle his acceptance and approval of his son's actions. “Extravagance has its uses. We must demonstrate the power and wealth of Casterly Rock for all the realm to see.” Extravagance and terror are the two sides of the Lannister coin.

The Sword

Swords are significant as symbols in ASOIAF, I'm thinking here of The Sworn Sword (and if you haven't read Dunk and Egg – why are you denying yourself pleasure?) and the importance of how Aegon IV passing on Blackfyre to Daemon could be perceived. The creation and the passing on of two heirloom swords to Jaime and Joffrey repeats Tywin's denial of Casterly Rock to Tyrion, at least Tyrion certainly seems to interpret it in that way “So...a sword for Joff, a sword for Jaime, and not even a dagger for the dwarf. Is that the way of it, Father?”

But these are not just any swords – they are made from Ice, the Valyrian great sword of House Stark and Tywin has chosen to deny his son and any potential semi-Stark grandson this Stark heirloom. Doesn't this undercut and hinder Tyrion's chances of establishing a Lannister ascendancy in the North? Is this another part of Tywin's Rains of Castlemere policy and keeping his children in their places? It certainly seems to fit the pattern of Tyrion being denied the resources he needs to make a success that opened the chapter.

However Tywin's hopes have already been undercut by the gods of irony. As readers we already know that Jaime's sword hand has been chopped off (Jaime III ASOS). The gift will be useless and will in turn be passed on to Brienne.

Black and red. Hmmm, Targaryen colours “like waves of night and blood on some steely shore”.

I feel this was a great discussion, and just wanted to link to this good thread on moral imperatives, by butterbumps!. Some of us have participated in it, on the first page ( it gets derailed later,I fear ), so it might help understand some of our positions.

The threads you remember!

[Lummel]

Whoops seems that I killed the thread with my last post! So moving swiftly backwards...

...A bloody sheet, the story of Tysha grows more gruesome with every retelling, as if to leave not the slightest bit of doubt of Tyrion´s guilt. "Made me go last" - "My cock betrayed me" - "A bloody sheet".

Sorry, but I´m still outraged by this excuse that Martin had Tyrion make. "My cock betrayed me". What does that mean?

Did his cock make him join a bloody rape of the woman he claimed to have loved, that he believed was paid by his brother to give him her maidenhead? Does this meanTyrion rejects consciously every blame, except for his erection?

His erection is my least problem, excitement, emotional upheaval and fear can lead to one, but it would be denial of his true guilt if that´s the only fault he´s admitting to.

He feared the consequences, He didn´t want to be sent to the Wall or be killed in a hunting accident, not his cock...

I find this a fantastic example of disassociation. I know that we (at least when speaking about us the male chunk of the population) speak of our euphemism of choice as having a mind of its own but Tyrion really shows us the hollowness of that way of thinking,

If we take him at face value then he's only a mere observer of the events that he participates in. No, it's not Tyrion who rapes Tysha - it is his wilful penis that drags him over to the bleeding girl and does the deed while poor Tyrion was helpless in the back seat!

But I think why he does this get to the heart of what is going on, at least in the first three books and maybe also in ADWD. It's not just a question of wanting to avoid guilt and taking responsibility for his own part - isn't it also a question of avoiding blaming his father? The more he acknowledges his own role, the more I feel that he has to confront his father's role. His father who is not only a role model, but also a very similar person to himself, blaming his father and acknowledging Tywin responsibility maybe also requires Tyrion to be critical of himself and his own drives. The whole memory is a kind of Heart of Darkness experience, easier maybe to disassociate himself from it?

[butterbumps!]

I loved that debate about naked and nude and all those examples, thank you, you have been so interesting and helpful.

You see, I am a figurative painter myself who happens to work very much with the images of female, of age and sexuality in her works and I have so often struggled with terminology when I had to write English catalogue texts or some other wiseass stuff about my own work.

So, sorry I cannot give you examples of my own works here but, as my children explained to me, it is bad manners and a breach of forum netiquette to give too many informations that can be traced back, a shame. (the little girl in my avatar is a small detail from one of mine's)

I always loved your avatar. I can see Otto Dix, as Lummel said, but it had given me a very "Death of Marat" vibe, especially in conjunction with your username.

And, butterbumps, Tyrion does not want her to be the little girl again, he sees that she is in fact a child caught in a situation with no way out. As un-feminist as it reads: this perception of Tyrion lets her muster the courage

I wasn't contending whether Tyrion wanted her to be a little girl again, but rather contending that I didn't think this was the basis for his motivation not to go through with the bedding. I think it's a really interesting issue, because I think Sansa's behavior really is a subtle defiance, and I think that, while this particular display may not have "worked" for some of the other characters, it hit one of Tyrion's nerves and defused his ability to follow through. And I think the nerve it hits is really significant in terms of who Tyrion is, how he's evolving, and importantly, how he continues to deal with an ongoing struggle of being both victim and victimizer.

I think the fact that he doesn't follow through because he is unable to take pleasure in it (and the root of the problem, he feels unloved/ unwanted) is an important piece of this. I think sometimes I've gotten into debates where it's been asserted that Tyrion "did the right thing" in not following through by virtue of some intentional kindness to Sansa. I think that it's critical that it's his own pleasure/ needs that are the basis for not sleeping with her in understanding the scene and his adjacent behavior, because this is one of those issues where I think the "right" outcome conflates the assumed "rightness" of the underlying motives.

That Tyrion thinks of his own pleasure as a primary incentive in not sleeping with Sansa doesn't make bad, or evil, or anything like that. It makes him a human who's suffered feelings of rejection and uncertainty about love, and something of a romantic idealist about these issues as well. He wants a kind of mutually pleasurable relationship like he thought he had had with Tysha. I think that this is very sympathetic, but simply wanted to posit that I don't believe his motivations stem from a shared sense of victimhood or an "altruistic" impulse in not following through with it.

[Woman of War]

@butterbumps

This is an interesting debate about the intrinsic value of good deeds or, here, not doing the bad deed.

Do you do the good deed (or avoid the bad deed) for the sole purpose of abstractly doing the right thing?

Or do you do the right thing for the intrinsic gratification that lies in showing to yourself that you are "good"?

There have been filled libraries of philosophical and religious works about that topic. Has it been Kant who summarized up the problem? My Woody Allen-like interpretation:

Do we do the right thing because we know it is right?

Do we do the right thing because it is God's commandment?

Does God give the commandments randomly or because they are rules that lead to the right thing and a functioning society?

If God's commandments are the right thing to do and we perceive them as such - do we need God for this or would our own conscience tell us what to do just as well?

Is a good deed still a good deed if it is not done for following God's or moral commandments to be good but for the inner satisfaction of feeling better with having been good?

What makes a society function? Doing the right thing no matter if you get any, extrinsic or intrinsic gratification? Or doing the right because you get gratified by society, may it be by public respect (right the contrary happenend in Tyrion's case) or by your upbringing as social being, called conscience?

So, is a good deed less valiant because you did it for the satisfying feeling of having been good and not "for itself"?

Can you separate one from the other? An utilitarian would answer "you can't" and a rigorous moralist "you should".

I think the fact that he doesn't follow through because he is unable to take pleasure in it (and the root of the problem, he feels unloved/ unwanted) is an important piece of this. I think sometimes I've gotten into debates where it's been asserted that Tyrion "did the right thing" in not following through by virtue of some intentional kindness to Sansa. I think that it's critical that it's his own pleasure/ needs that are the basis for not sleeping with her in understanding the scene and his adjacent behavior, because this is one of those issues where I think the "right" outcome conflates the assumed "rightness" of the underlying motives.

So you are here taking the position that I called in a simplifying way "morally rigorous". Tyrion does not rape Sansa not because he does not want to harm her but because this is not the kind of sex he wants. Lets summarize: he does not want marriage and sex where he has to harm someone, motive and outcome conflating, the utilitarian is happy. Less moral? He does not commit something wrong because it gives him no pleasure, full stop. Isn't this the nucleus of an internalized conscience, contrary to a superficial conscience where bad deeds are avoided for fear of being judged negatively (by God or society or us readers)? You don't steal your neighbour's money because it is wrong to steal it. Or you don't steal your neighbour's money for the egoistic and self centered reason that spending the stolen money would leave you unhappy and everything you buy with it would feel stale? Well, why? Because you know that stealing is wrong! This is called conscience, values of human interaction that have become part of your personality. No matter if Tyrion is intentionally kind to Sansa or if his conscience subconsciously forbids him to harm her and thus makes him unintentionally kind. Does being good have to be a conscious decision and subconscious instinctive goodness does not count?

That Tyrion thinks of his own pleasure as a primary incentive in not sleeping with Sansa doesn't make bad, or evil, or anything like that.&amp. It makes him a human.....

exactly! This is human since most human decisions are not made by sophisticated dissections of motives but by instinctive decisions, by a conscience that has to be trained and exercised like a muscle in order to work spontaneously right in challenging situations, guided by a knot of motivations that can hardly be untied.....

......who's suffered feelings of rejection and uncertainty about love, and something of a romantic idealist about these issues as well. He wants a kind of mutually pleasurable relationship like he thought he had had with Tysha. I think that this is very sympathetic, but simply wanted to posit that I don't believe his motivations stem from a shared sense of victimhood or an "altruistic" impulse in not following through with it.

Actually Tyrion dreams of the most basic things: of someone who is there for him who loves him for yourself, of family and children (going ahead here: his longing look at the "pregnant" couple among Joffrey's wedding guests). As it happens, these are exactly the dreams Sansa has, here Tyrion is just as conventional (no negative undertone intended) as Sansa. They would have understood each other if they only had tried to talk for a moment. Yes, there could have been a common understanding as victims, they could have made common cause if Tyrion had not behaved like a sixteen year old boy and had not been haunted by Tysha's ghost and if Sansa had been older and able to think clearly and had tried her luck with Tyrion's intellect and sensitivity. They could have tried to save each other from getting killed by working together.

And: is it only altruistic to refrain from a bad deed if it would have brought you pleasure but you bravely refrain because you see it is wrong? But it would be egoistic, as opposed to altruistic, if you refrain from doing a bad deed because doing the wrong would have brought you no pleasure in the beginning anyways?

Do you have to suffer, do you have to suffer from right decisions to make them morally valuable? He would have sooooo much loved to fuck her but he did not for moral reasons vs it would have been a haunting experience to fuck her under these circumstances anyways, therefore the right decision does not count? Resisting sin is only good if the sin would be fun? There was no fun in it he had to resist, only Godfather's command.

Edited for clarity.... Guess it did not help very much :)

[butterbumps!]

@butterbumps

This is an interesting debate about the intrinsic value of good deeds or, here, not doing the bad deed.

Do you do the good deed (or avoid the bad deed) for the sole purpose of abstractly doing the right thing?

Or do you do the right thing for the intrinsic gratification that lies in showing to yourself that you are "good"?

There have been filled libraries of philosophical and religious works about that topic. Has it been Kant who summarized up the problem? My Woody Allen-like interpretation:

Do we do the right thing because we know it is right?

Do we do the right thing because it is God's commandment?

Does God give the commandments randomly or because they are rules that lead to the right thing and a functioning society?

If God's commandments are the right thing to do and we perceive them as such - do we need God for this or would our own conscience tell us what to do just as well?

Is a good deed still a good deed if it is not done for following God's or moral commandments to be good but for the inner satisfaction of feeling better with having been good?

What makes a society function? Doing the right thing no matter if you get any, extrinsic or intrinsic gratification? Or doing the right because you get gratified by society, may it be by public respect (right the contrary happenend in Tyrion's case) or by your upbringing as social being, called conscience?

So, is a good deed less valiant because you did it for the satisfying feeling of having been good and not "for itself"?

Can you separate one from the other? An utilitarian would answer "you can't" and a rigorous moralist "you should".

I don't know if I was making a moral commentary necessarily. I was more making an argument for the precision in locating "why" characters make the choices they do as a means of better understanding the character.

I think looking at outcome and intentions is incredibly important ethics-wise, though. Though I do tend to take what you refer to as a "morally rigorous" position, I think that intention is often extremely important for building sympathy for a character, or looking on certain decisions more positively or negatively by the reader. Imagine if we neglected the intentions of Dany and only looked at her results. Or on the flip side there's Stannis, who made a choice to burn Edric, and even though Edric was not burnt, Stannis did intend to let him burn.

I do tend to think there's such a thing as doing the "right" thing for the "wrong" reasons, and I would put Tyrion's bedding into this category. In my opinion, that Tyrion refrained from bedding Sansa because of his own personal insecurity is important for his character, especially in understanding that he doesn't do this because he necessarily thinks it would be "wrong." It's not an ethical debate that leads him to not consummate, but rather the fact that he doesn't want to feel worse about himself. His intention/ motives don't negate the objective goodness that he did not consummate the marriage. But I think in terms of character analysis and exploring reader sympathy, seeing Tyrion's true motives is extremely important for understanding who he is; his arc is full of dissonance between doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, as well as the reverse-- doing things in service of a terrible cause even though he has impulse at times to do real good.

So I wasn't trying to admonish Tyrion for his intentions or behavior, but rather get to the bottom of why he chose to behave in this manner. That the bedding didn't happen is an objective good, imo, but why it didn't happen tells us a lot of Tyrion's character. I guess to put it into perspective, in the same way that Dany's results in DwD shouldn't erase the fact that she had really noble intentions that went awry, I think that we should also look at Tyrion's less altruistic motives in doing the "right" thing.

ETA: Lum-- I need to catch up with Tyrion 4....will get back on task to the current chapter!

[Lummel]

Should we expect Tyrion to have altruistic motivations? Do somepeople think that he is good simply because he is a POV character? What is the drive to look for the good - do we want to justify our own enjoyment and satisfaction with the taste of Singer's stew? (Now avalible from all good pot shops).

[Woman of War]

By butterbumps

I do tend to think there's such a thing as doing the "right" thing for the "wrong" reasons, and I would put Tyrion's bedding into this category.In my opinion, that Tyrion refrained from bedding Sansa because of his own personal insecurity is important for his character, especially in understanding that he doesn't do this because he necessarily thinks it would be "wrong."It's not an ethical debate that leads him to not consummate, but rather the fact that he doesn't want to feel worse about himself.

and why would he have felt worse about himself? Because an inner subconscious ethical debate with his twisted past and a certain feeling for right and wrong he has despite his upbringing tells him that bedding Sansa would be wrong. That it would be wrong to fuck a shivering child, for whatever reason.

No, he has not weighed different goods:

My father has told me to do it: yes

I am her husband and this is a Westerosi wedding night: yes

.......

vs

She is a child and one does do not have sex with children: no

She does not want me: no

......

I am carefully weighing the pros and cons: obeying my father is less important here than.......

So objectively I come to the result that not fucking her is the more valuable moral and therefore the rational decision.

And let's not forget that we are in Sansa's POV, we have trouble to dissect Tyrion's motivation, it is very much assumption based on what we have read about this character before and as well after this particular event. Tyrion is not yet the person he was after ASOS, in discussing him we should not forget this.

No, his thinking does not work like that.

He has the twisted illusion to start a marriage that deserves the name. And perceives, feels, senses, sees and finally realizes that his dreams are shattered before they even began. Yes, this may be about himself, his dreams. But why are they shattered? Because Sansa sends unmistakable signs that these dreams can never become reality (I would not know what Martin intends for x volumes later) and these signs are clearly signals about how totally miserable she is, so Tyrion's perception is not about the abstract idea of fucking a child but about the person right here before him, the very concrete Sansa and her misery and this makes him feel miserable and dirty about the intention to fuck her. Sansa's feelings trigger the impulse not to do the evil deed because, yes, they cause him to feel miserable about it. Is this about him or about her? It is just like life.

Do you bake a cake for your kid because you want to make him or her happy or because you feel great when your child's eyes sparkle? We humans are conditioned to reward ourselves with the emotions of others, this is mirroring them and this is why society works.

I do not want to sound overly insisting on being right since my position precisely is: it does not really matter if we do the right thing for the "selfish" reason of emotional reward or after an abstract analysis. You can see this as the utilitarian position I am taking here.

You are of course right that we have to consider intentions vs outcome like in Daenerys' case. But I think your example of Stannis is not quite accurate since It was not Stannis' decision in the face of Edric's fear and misery to stop the crime, the boy simply was not there anymore. This would be comparable if Tyrion had been stopped from "consummation" by e.g. a fire, so that they had to leave the room in a hurry.

But this debate could easily end with nitpicking. I think it is just like life: our decisions are a mixture of conscious and subconscious and we are not as free to make rational decisions as we flatter us humans to believe.