Tywin Lannister wasn't a Genius

A Character Analysis

With the popularity of my last post bashing Snape, I thought I’d look at other popular characters that are extremely misunderstood. And, as you can probably tell that I landed on Tywin Lannister from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. There are many similarities between the two; they are some of the most popular antagonists in the series, and both are incredibly misunderstood by their fanbases. Still, they have some key differences; while I dislike Snape and believe his arc to be poorly written, Tywin is possibly my favorite villain from the fantasy genre.

There is a small minority of Tywin fans who will argue that he is actually a good person. This argument is categorically stupid, and generally comes from people who try to justify their favorite characters’ actions instead of accepting that being a fan of ASOIAF means rooting for your favorite war criminal. The real reason people like Tywin? He appears as one of the series’ few competent people, and competence is fun to watch. Charles Dance’s amazing performance in Game of Thrones probably helps too. In this post, I aim to explain that although an amazing character, Tywin Lannister is not nearly as competent as people think he is.

Note: this post contains spoilers for A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

Tywin was a deeply insecure man

Tywin’s father, Tytos, was a kind but weak man, one whose bannermen openly laughed at him. This is the root cause of Tywin’s insecurity, as he never wanted to be laughed at the way his father was. Whatever he said about the Lannister house, that was the true motivator of all his actions: to leave such a legacy that no one in history would ever laugh at him. Tywin did not possess the charisma to be loved by others, nor do I think he wanted it. Rather, Tywin possessed a forcefulness of character, one that allowed him to dominate the room. Look at how his sister talks about him:

I was seven when Walder Frey persuaded my lord father to give my hand to Emm. His second son, not even his heir. Father was himself a thirdborn son, and younger children crave the approval of their elders. Frey sensed that weakness in him, and Father agreed for no better reason than to please him. My betrothal was announced at a feast with half the west in attendance. Ellyn Tarbeck laughed and the Red Lion went angry from the hall. The rest sat on their tongues. Only Tywin dared speak against the match. A boy of ten. Father turned as white as mare’s milk, and Walder Frey was quivering… Tywin was big even when he was little.

His insecurity also fed into his massive ego. Even his sister called him out on it, in the same scene:

...Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you. I said so once to your father’s face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years.

This combination of insecurity, ego, and a dominating personality meant that nobody ever said no to him. And while they feared him, for good reason, many laughed at him behind his back. Martin shows how his death and funeral were a subject for ridicule, even for his children.

The Red Wedding was a dumb move

The Red Wedding is one of the most iconic scenes in the series. While it may have seemed at the time to be an effective, if brutal, solution to end the threat of the Starks, the later books show its disastrous long-term consequences. Guest rights were considered sacred in Westeros, and whoever broke them in such spectacular fashion would immediately ruin their reputation. While Tywin expected the Freys and the Boltons to take the fall in this regard, everyone knew (or at least suspected) Lannister involvement. In fact, with the number of times Robb beat the Lannisters in the field, it reeked more of desperation than anything.

The Red Wedding also served to immortalize the Stark family in a narrative of tragedy and resilience. The surviving Starks, particularly Arya and Sansa, became symbols of resistance and vengeance, which ultimately influenced the power dynamics in Westeros. The North will probably destroy the Boltons, and the River Lords will turn on the Freys at the first opportunity. And once they are done, they will come for the Lannisters.

Tywin wrecked the future of his House

Very few of the Westerosi lords are stellar parents. Very few of them are as spectacularly terrible as Tywin. He never saw his children as people, but as his property, or as extensions of themselves. Their desires, in his mind, were always subservient to his own. We get to see the POVs of all three of his children, and each of them clearly shows how badly he damaged them.

Jaime was probably his favorite, as the heir to Casterly Rock, but his favor probably didn’t translate to emotional connection or support. While he wasn’t physically abused, Tywin’s lack of caring and affection messed up each of the kids to varying degrees. Although skilled and charismatic, Jaime had neither the talent for nor the interest in politics, and Tywin never tried to hide his disappointment about that.

In her father’s eyes, Cersei made the unforgivable sin of being born a woman, and so was not worthy of his time or attention. Tywin was deeply misogynistic even by Westerosi standards, and never saw Cersei as anything more than a tool to put a Lannister on the throne. She was the only one of his children to share his ambitious nature, but he never cared to teach her how to make use of it. Her inheritance from him was a unique mixture of arrogance and internalized misogyny, a belief that she was much cleverer than she actually was, and that people disrespected her solely because of her gender rather than her variety of dumb decisions. It’s also implied that Tywin’s abuse is the reason Cersei let Joffrey get away with so much: it’s because she’s living vicariously through him. Joffrey is the heir who can do no wrong, because that’s what Cersei never was to her father.

Tywin makes his hatred for Tyrion very clear. He blames Tyrion for the death of his mother, who died giving birth to him, and for his dwarfism, which mars Tywin’s facade of the perfect Lannister family. This is made all the more tragic by the parallels Martin draws between them; it is made very clear that out of all of his kids, Tyrion is the only one who has his father’s intelligence. Tywin could have shaped a future dynasty of Lannisters that would surpass even him; the combination of Jaime’s skill and charisma, Cersei’s ambition, and Tyrion’s intellect could have been devastating. Instead, he turned his family into a toxic, backstabbing mess.

Tywin’s hypocrisy killed him

For all Tywin’s talk to his children about upholding the family name and not putting themselves first, he never held himself to the same standards that he held them to. He preached loyalty and unity to his children, but manipulated and emotionally abused them their entire lives. He shamed Tyrion for employing the services of prostitutes, then slept with Shae. It is implied that he regularly slept with prostitutes during his time as Aerys’ Hand, constructing a tunnel to sneak out and do so. He insulted Tyrion for being unable to control the mountain tribes, but never took accountability for atrocities committed by Gregor, Amory, or the Bloody Mummers. He forced Cersei into a loveless marriage, then pressured her to remarry, all in the name of House Lannister’s greater good. Meanwhile, Tywin himself never remarried after his wife’s death, despite being Westeros’s most eligible bachelor, and being able to forge strong marital ties.

Arguably the most horrific thing he did was his treatment of Tyrion’s first wife. I’d rather not write about it, so let’s just say that it was an act of senseless cruelty that led to Tyrion snapping after a lifetime of abuse and finally killing him.

Conclusion

Tywin’s death makes it very clear that Martin did not intend for him to be a grand Machiavellian genius. The entire event produces only pathos: Tywin is murdered, not at a battlefield or even a wedding, but on the toilet. His funeral stinks so badly that his daughter jokes about it and his grandson throws up. It’s like Martin wanted to punish him; Tywin hated being laughed at, but his death got turned into a joke. Even in life, he got beaten in battle by a fifteen-year-old, then had him assassinated in a manner with predictable and disastrous long-term consequences. He could have turned his children into political powerhouses, but instead, he messed them up so badly that two of them started sleeping with each other (and he never found out about it, despite half of Westeros figuring it out). The third child killed him.

The message of A Song of Ice and Fire, at least to me, is that morality may be a grey zone, but moral choices are worth making. Ned Stark was, at least by Westerosi standards, a moral man. He makes every possible blunder politically, and it kills him. But his nobility was such that the North was willing to go to war for his family years after his death. Tywin? His legacy was gone in the snap of a crossbow.