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Opinions on Pycelle


Knight Of Winter

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Being intrigued about lack/rarity of threads about Pycelle's character, I've decided to make this one. While I've seen various threads passionately arguing about every possible Westerosi character and his morality, from Starks, Lannisters and Tyrells, to Barristan, Dany, Littlefinger or Varys, I can't remember seeing one discussing our favourite Grand Maester in the same way.

So basically, I'd like to know what's everyone's opinion of Pycelle? Does he have fans or is it unanimously agreed he is irredeemable jerk? What do you all think are his best or worst moves/decisions?

Note: since I'd like to steer this thread towards discussion of his character and hearing about people's opinions on Pycelle instead of ranting, I'll put my (very low) opinion of him inside spoiler tag.

I consider him as one of most disgusting and distasteful characters in the series, smug jerk willing to burn the world if he could help the Lannisters.

As soon as I met this guy, I knew I wasn't going to like him. From the scene where he was introduced to his untimely death he mainly talks about about himself and especially how old he is. Which could be stomached, but then he gets worse pretty fast. He firstly manages to endear himself to me by defending Ser Gregor, an „anointed knight“ in front of whole court after Tywin sent him to murder and pillage poor Riverlands folk. This gives us his M.O. regarding his moral standing and his behaviour in Lannisters in general. Till the end of book, he further manages to get sniffed out by expert player such as Ned, and emotionally blackmail Sansa by telling her of her traitor's blood when Cersei wanted her to write the letter.

Pycelle continues to shine on in ACOK, where he chooses to kiss Cersei's ass despite knowing how poor of a ruler she is, So he supports her stupid idea to cut out tongues of people who talk about incest. After he betrays Tyrion, he gets surprise visit in the middle of the night where he shows how truly pathetic character is is. He confesses to murdering Jon Arryn – a fine Hand (so much for him serving the realm) simply because he thought Cersei wanted him to. And there's whole thing with him bedding his young servant – which he accomplished either by abusing his position or by being 80 year old Casanova (I'll let you decide which is more likely). Worth nothing is how his aura of wisdom and magnificence suddenly dissapears when Tyrion had his beard cut.

I think this incident also highlights what a hypocrite Pycelle is. While he has no problem with thousands of people being killed for Lannister cause, he is terrified of spending some time in Black Cells.

When Tywin returns to KL, Pycelle is back in his comfort zone. Being Tywin's lackey is something he knows and does best. So he continues to serve as GM, generally being useless (suggesting they let Stannis rot on Dragonstone) or going along with Tywin's schemes at the expense of kingdom (proposing horribly corrupt and incompetent man as commander of NW). Till the end of ASOS, he manages to call Joffrey the sweetest child that ever walked the land, or something similar, probably leaving one giant WTF sign over the heads of everyone listening on Tyrion's trial.

After Tywin dies and Cersei the Mad takes over, Pycelle still faithfully serves Lannister cause. And despite him suffering continuous humiliations by Cersei, Pycelle still lies to her about Margaery requesting moon tea from him (let's be frank, there's no way someone tutored by QOT would be so stupid to ask abortificant from known Lannister lackey). Anyhow, Cersei's downfall was inevitable, and Pycelle uses this opportunity to take reins and invite Kevan to rule as Regent.

This also leads me to believe Pycelle has no self-respect at all. Through the course of series, Tyrion cuts of his beard and has him imprisoned (or imprisoned), Tywin tells him he lost his wits along with his beard while Cersei repeatedly degrades him – and yet, when each of them suffers downfall, he again invites another Lannister to rule. Combination of no self-respect, defending Lannister atrocities, abusing his power, and generally being hypocritical lackey truly make a character worthy of every possible ounce of contempt.

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A Lannister loyalist, much like Manderly's, I am not sure why House Lannister inspires such loyalty, by all accounts Tywin's dad was nothing special, but I guess Tywin might have earned Pycelle's loyalty while serving as Hand.

That's his redeeming feature really, but he is also quite wise and smart, but also lacks morals, a dangerous combo. He probably could have stood up to Tyrion but he didn't have much backbone.

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He's a butt on an average day, but he can also be an ass on more daring occasions. People like him are the reason the glorious Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't turn California's legislature around. There's just too many nimrods like this clogging the wheels of government. So Arnold eventually gave up and boinked some maid who walked into his field of vision. Same with Renly, who gave up on the system ever working right, so he decided to go around the law and try to do things his way. He knew that in life you have to stop to smell the flowers. He just sniffed them way too hard is all. (There was a chance just now to replace 'smelling the flowers' with 'fisting the flowers', but I missed it and now it's too late).

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He's a butt on an average day, but he can also be an ass on more daring occasions. People like him are the reason the glorious Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't turn California's legislature around. There's just too many nimrods like this clogging the wheels of government. So Arnold eventually gave up and boinked some maid who walked into his field of vision. Same with Renly, who gave up on the system ever working right, so he decided to go around the law and try to do things his way. He knew that in life, you have to stop to smell the flowers. He just sniffed them way too hard is all.

Thank you. I laughed for like a minute after reading the first line. :rofl:

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A Lannister loyalist, much like Manderly's, I am not sure why House Lannister inspires such loyalty, by all accounts Tywin's dad was nothing special, but I guess Tywin might have earned Pycelle's loyalty while serving as Hand.

That's his redeeming feature really, but he is also quite wise and smart, but also lacks morals, a dangerous combo. He probably could have stood up to Tyrion but he didn't have much backbone.

He was Tywin's creature to be sure. As a young Maester he heard of the Young Lord of the Rock that destroyed the Reyenes and Tarbecks then when Tywin was Hand I'm sure they bonded. Pycelle knew the Lannisters were the richest, and Tywin was cunning and rutheless so he backed their horse...er lion.

There is an excellent deleted scene that didn't take place in the books but show's the situation perfectly.

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