“A drunken dwarf will never be the savior of the Seven Kingdoms.”
As we near the Game of Thrones endgame, we’re getting reminders that Tyrion Lannister
is the once and future hero of ‘Game of Thrones’.
“Bad people are what I'm good at. Outtalking them, outthinking them.
It's what I am.”
The structure of the show’s very first episode signaled that
this was a story of three characters with unlocked potential,
who begin as bastards-of-sorts in the eyes of their world:
“All dwarfs are bastards in their fathers’ eyes.”
the supposed Stark bastard Jon Snow, the exiled and female Daenerys Targaryen,
and the widely hated dwarf, Tyrion Lannister.
Since then, Dany has been hailed as a savior of peoples,
and Jon has learned he has an even better claim to the Iron Throne –
but what about Tyrion?
“I used to think you were the cleverest man alive.”
Of late, he’s made one mistake after another.
“I was a fool.”
“Not for the first time.”
Yet while he’s hit the rock bottom moment in his arc as the “brain” of the series,
if we look back over the full series, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest
that the story has been gradually setting up
Tyrion Lannister to be the eventual king.
“I am a gift.”
He’s arguably the character with the most potential to be a worthy ruler.
“Tyrion Lannister is one of the few people alive
who could make this country a better place.
He has the mind for it, he has the will,
he has the right last name.”
In the second episode of the final season,
just before the Battle of Winterfell is about to begin,
the camera lingers significantly on each of our three figurative bastards –
Daenerys, Jon, and last of all Tyrion.
These shot choices are a very intentional way
of signaling that –
whatever ultimately happens with the throne –
Tyrion is our ultimate hero.
So let’s take a look at why Tyrion Lannister is the key to this story and, perhaps,
the ultimate King of whatever world is left when this is all over.
“So mainly you talk.”
“And drink. I’ve survived so far.”
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In the book ‘A Game of Thrones’, the last line of Jon’s first chapter reads,
“When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow
clear across the yard, and for just a moment
Tyrion Lannister stood as tall as a king.”
And in fact the visual at the end of Season 8 Episode 2
kind of evokes this line.
The shot plays with perspective, lending this smallest of men
an unmatched gravity and scope due to his far-reaching insight.
Tirian is the name of the last monarch of the kingdom of Narnia.
‘Tyr’ in Old Norse means ‘The God’.
And the Greek and Latin ‘Tyrannos’ and ‘Tyrannus’
are linked to the meanings monarch or ruler.
And Tyrion with an ‘a’ makes us think of ‘Tyrian Purple’,
the very expensive purple die once worn by Roman Emperors.
So these possible inspirations for the name
strengthen the character’s connotations of royalty and rule.
When Tyrion travels with Varys across the Narrow Sea,
he happens on some Lord of Light worshippers,
when the leader stops and stares across the fire at Tyrion.
The moment might remind us of Melisandre catching sight of Jon Snow through the fire.
In this scene, Tyrion has just been talking about a ‘savior’
“We’re going to meet the savior? You should have told me.”
and this is when the worshipper gets a special look in her eyes.
So that could be an additional hint that Tyrion has the potential to save people.
More importantly, Tyrion deserves to rule
for the best reason anyone should – because he’s good at it.
"You enjoy the game.”
“I do. Last thing I expected.”
“And you play it well.”
“I'd like to keep playing it.”
In contrast to Jon the reluctant ruler, and Daenerys the conquerer
who brings the classic Targaryen Fire and Blood,
“I don’t claim to be a great warrior.”
Tyrion likes the game of the show's title,
“I like it more than anything I’ve ever done.”
because he likes the actual business of governing.
“You don’t need slaves to make money.
There haven’t been slaves in Westeros in hundreds of years and I grew up
richer than any of you.”
When he’s acting Hand of the King he makes it fun for the audience
to understand the functional aspects of ruling.
“What do you know about warfare.”
“Nothing.
But I know people, and I know that our enemies
hate each other almost as much as they hate us.”
When he’s made Master of Coin,
“I’m quite good at spending money but a lifetime of outrageous wealth
hasn’t taught me much about managing it.”
he even bothers to do his job, unlike every other person
who’s held the role.
“It's the Iron Bank of Braavos. We owe them tens of millions.
If we fail to repay these loans, the bank will fund our enemies.”
Tyrion is arguably the best potential ruler on the show
due to his combination of two valued attributes:
his sharp, learned mind,
“My brother has his sword, and I have my mind,
and a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.”
and his deeply feeling heart.
“Why are you sorry?
Because you're an evil bastard with no conscience and no heart?
That's what I liked about you in the first place.”
His trusting Cersei to send her army north makes him look like a fool,
yet it’s pretty astonishing that Tyrion can still feel love for a sister
who’s wanted him dead ever since he was born.
“You can choose the creature that killed our mother
to come into this world.”
“Are you really mad enough to blame him for that?”
A truly wise ruler needs to have faith in people’s ability to be better –
even if sometimes that faith isn’t deserved.
“Cersei told me the pregnancy had changed her.”
“I am guilty of being a dwarf.”
“You are not on trial for being a dwarf.”
“Oh, yes, I am.
I've been on trial for that my entire life.”
Of our three central ‘bastards of sorts’, two are model-esque warriors,
“They do make a handsome couple.”
who have inspired fervent devotion and intense adulation
from huge groups of people.
Meanwhile Tyrion has been regarded as a chosen one by….
pretty much no one.
“I saved this city, and all your worthless lives.
I should have let Stannis kill you all.”
And if all three are underestimated, only Tyrion is viewed as truly repugnant.
“I wish I was the monster you think I am.”
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in Westeros
who’s been more despised, simply for the form in which
he came into this world.
“This little monster, I told Cersei, that’s just a baby.
And she said he killed my mother.”
It’s kind of incredible how many times people accuse him of murders and crimes
he had nothing to do with.
“This man came into my house as a guest, and there conspired to murder my son.”
“You stand accused by the Queen Regent of regicide.”
“He killed your father. He murdered the Hand of the King!”
“Oh, did I kill him too?”
Tyrion’s world assumes he’s guilty of evil crimes
because they don’t like his appearance.
“He's talking about you.”
“What?
Demon monkey?”
“People think you're pulling the king's strings.”
This reflects the medieval mindset, which saw a much more direct,
symbolic correspondence between inner and outer natures.
In other words, outer beauty was considered a reflection of inner goodness,
and outer ugliness a sign of inner evil.
“The whole way from Dorne, all anyone talked about
was the monster that had been born to Tywin Lannister.”
All three of Game of Thrones’ central characters
are special first and foremost not because of their blood,
but because they’ve had to travel a long road.
Those characters who seem close to having it all from the start, like Robb
Stark,
trip and fall.
While Jon goes up to freeze at the wall,
and Daenerys starts all the way across the world,
and step by step they get slowly closer to the center of the action.
The ways in which these characters aren’t immediately accepted
give them the experiences that make a great leader.
“The king won’t give you any honors, and histories won’t mention you.”
And in real terms, Tyrion is the “biggest bastard” of all
in the story,
which somehow makes him most likely to be the true destined leader.
“I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.”
This is Game of Thrones, which always goes for the surprise
over the obvious.
And it’s not just a gimmick – it reflects the fundamental lesson
that all is not as it appears,
in a world that prioritizes appearance above all.
“Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not.
Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you.”
So there would be no more fitting reversal of people’s expectations
than for the dwarf who inspires near-universal disdain
to be the ultimate ruler of all.
“People follow leaders, and they will never follow us.
They find us repulsive.”
George R. R. Martin has said that Samwell Tarly
is probably the character he’d be, but quote,
“Tyrion might be who I want to be.”
“I drink, and I know things.”
Tyrion expresses the perspective of the storytellers,
"I'm not questioning your honor, Lord Janos.
I'm denying its existence."
and even what we the audience might be thinking,
but with a touch more wit.
“Have you ever considered learning how to lie every now and then?
Just a bit?”
We’re likely to agree with his assessments of character,
“You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality.
That, and your cheekbones.”
societies,
“It’s easy to confuse what is and what ought to be,
especially when what is has worked out in your favor.”
and rules for good conversation.
“There’s nothing worse than a late-blooming philosopher.”
And as this perspective of the story itself, Tyrion reveals some key tenets
of the show’s philosophy.
To begin with, he’s a self-professed voice for the grotesques.
In the first season, both Bran – and the one who pushes him, Jaime,
say that they’d rather die than be crippled.
“I'd rather be dead.”
“Even if the boy lives, he'll be a cripple, a grotesque.
Give me a good, clean death any day.”
But Tyrion corrects his brother.
“Speaking for the grotesques, I'd have to disagree.
Death is so final, whereas life ah, life is full of possibilities.”
Which brings us to the second aspect of the show’s philosophy expressed in Tyrion:
he has a lust for life.
“And if the day ever comes when you're tempted to sell me out,
remember this: whatever their price,
I'll beat it.
I like living.”
He loves life more than any philosophy or ideology about it.
“It’s not easy being drunk all the time. Everyone would do it if it were easy.”
Likewise, Tyrion loves people more than he cares about their last names.
“My dear brother, there are times
you make me wonder whose side you're on.
My dear brother, you wound me.
You know how much l love my family.”
For Tywin and Cersei, family means legacy,
“The house that puts family first will always defeat the house
that puts the whims and wishes of its sons and daughters first.”
so it’s really a proxy for self –
the continuation of one’s own name and genes.
By contrast, Tyrion crosses the Lannisters to serve a Targaryen.
But he does care about the people in his family.
“I loved them. You know I did.
You know it in your heart, if there's anything left of it.”
When Jaime returns to King’s Landing with one hand,
the other Lannisters give him a hard time,
“Ever since I've returned, every Lannister I've seen
has been a miserable pain in my ass.”
but Tyrion actually feels for his brother and helps him.
“It’s only wine.”
He approaches the world with humor – a key aspect of the show.
“I am the god of tits and wine.”
Also like this story Tyrion goes to some very dark places.
“I am the greatest Lannister killer of our time.”
In fact, Martin said Tyrion is his favorite because he’s the ‘greyest of the grey’.
“He’s funny, you have to give him that.”
As we enter this foreign world, Tyrion is the perfect translator for us
because he’s ultimate mix of insider and outsider.
This rich Lannister who’s also a hated dwarf fully understands his world,
“You walk like a rich person.”
yet he’s happy to comment irreverently for us
on what’s insane about it.
“She’s the rightful heir.”
“Why?
Because her father who burned living men for amusement was the King?”
Tyrion believes in compromise.
“As a clever man once told me, ‘We make peace with our enemies,
not our friends’.”
As we see through Stannis Baratheon’s missteps with Melisandre,
this show is skeptical of extremists.
The heart of Game of Thrones lies with balance.
“If there isn’t a future then why are we here?”
It’s not just the first episode that signals to us
a mysterious connection between Jon, Dany and Tyrion.
Let’s take a quick look at all the weird coincidences
they have in common:
All ‘killed’ their mother in childbirth.
This symbolizes that they didn’t come into this world easily
–
someone had to sacrifice for them to be here.
All three also have dead, controversial fathers.
“Our fathers were evil men, all of us here.
They left the world worse than they found it.”
All have a tragic love with an outsider, and are to varying degrees
responsible for that person’s death.
“I killed my lover with my bare hands.”
They see humanity in ‘other’ groups that Westeros doesn’t respect –
“She was a whore.”
“Say that word again.”
All have an unconventional advisor who believes in them and sees their potential
first.
All three get noticed by Lord of Light worshippers.
And lastly, all three may have Targaryen blood.
It may seem a little late in the game for another secret parentage reveal after
Jon’s,
but in the books, we’re told that the Mad King, Aerys Targaryen, had eyes
for Tyrion’s mother, Joanna Lannister, so he may have forced himself on her.
On the show, Tyrion is not only inspired by the sight of dragons,
but also well-received by them, and an affinity with dragons
is the key clue of Targaryen blood.
He even sees a dragon for the first time while passing through the ruins of Valyria,
the ancestral Targaryen home, which feels symbolic.
Moreover, Twyin Lannister insists multiple times
that he doesn’t believe Tyrion is his son.
“You are no son of mine.”
“Since I cannot prove that you are not mine.”
The surface explanation is that this is Tywin’s prejudice speaking.
Yet the passion with which he repeats this claim
really makes it feel he truly doesn’t believe he’s Tyrion’s father in a literal way.
Significantly he does acknowledge that Tyrion is a Lannister, though.
“And I brought you up as my son.
Because you're a Lannister.”
Joanna was already a Lannister in name, she and Tywin were cousins,
so he recognizes that Tyrion is his wife’s son.
In brief moments we see Tywin slipping into liking Tyrion,
almost against his will.
“You were right about Eddard Stark.”
“You just sent the most powerful man in Westeros
to bed without his supper.”
But his hatred inevitably resurfaces and overcomes this fair-minded part of him.
This behavior might remind us of Catelyn Stark’s relationship with Jon Snow.
“I came to say goodbye to Bran.”
“You have said it.”
Being Half Lannister/Half Targaryen would fit Tyrion’s mix of strengths.
He can be intuitive, daring, bold, even brutal like a Targaryen.
Yet he speaks the language of politics, negotiation, and bottom lines like a Lannister.
“What was that like, ruling without the rich?”
So he gets both the bigger picture purpose and the nitty-gritty methods of ruling.
“You might find it difficult to rule over millions who want you dead.”
In ‘Dance of Dragons’, the episode in which
Tyrion first sees Dany ride a dragon,
Shireen refers to the history of two Targaryens
who were half-brother and sister –
this could even be a clever nod to Daenerys and Tyrion being half-siblings,
if the Mad King were father to both of them.
“It’s the story of the fight between
Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon
for control of the Seven Kingdoms.”
The lesson Shireen reads into her history is that the siblings shouldn’t have
competed for the throne –
“It’s all the choosing sides that made everything so horrible.”
and it feels like this is a lesson Tyrion, who’s never expected to rule,
would understand far better than the increasingly entitled Daenerys.
At times we can see various literary influences informing different threads of this story
–
Stannis Baratheon takes after Macbeth
with his moral degradation in pursuit of ambition
and his misguided trust in a witch’s prophecy.
Jon Snow appears to be living out some version of the King Arthur myth,
complete with his own excalibur.
But one of the deepest literary echoes we see in this story
is Homer’s ancient Greek epic, ‘The Odyssey’.
That story takes place in the aftermath of the Iliad’s Trojan war,
just as this one is shaped by the offscreen Robert’s Rebellion –
and both wars are triggered by a beautiful woman
at the center of a love triangle.
“How many tens of thousands had to die because Rhaegar
chose your aunt?”
The protagonist of the Odyssey is Odysseus the Cunning,
renowned for his intelligence and guile.
Tyrion has Odysseus’ gift of the gab,
“You can’t just hand a dried cock to a merchant and expect him to pay for it.
He has to know it came from a dwarf.
And how could he know unless he sees the dwarf?”
“It will be a dwarf-sized cock.”
“Guess again.”
and like Odysseus, he goes on a long, roundabout journey,
which he barely survives thanks to his considerable wit and cunning.
“Fighting pits in Meereen, you’re in luck then,
you’re about to be rich.
You are looking at one of the great warriors in the Seven Kingdoms.”
In the books Tyrion has a special relationship with a character named Penny,
who might remind us of Odysseus’ faithful wife, Penelope.
Homer’s opening lines also tell us of Odysseus’ suffering,
which we see in Tyrion.
“Are we really going to spend the entire road to Volantis
talking about the futility of everything?”
“You’re right, no point.”
His memorable Cousin Orson story,
“‘Smash the beetles. Smash 'em.’”
gets at how Tyrion is plagued by the possibility that there’s no purpose
to all the meanness and ugliness he’s witnessed.
“And I had to know, because it was horrible that all these beetles should be dying
for no reason.”
Tyrion has failed a lot – especially lately.
Crucially, though, when it comes to mistakes:
“He owns his and learns from them.”
It’s up to him now to prove that he does have the brains
he’s famed for.
“I'd like to think I'm an intelligent man.”
“Oh, no one disputes that, my lord, not even the multitudes who despise you.”
But taking all these signs together, we can’t help but feel that Tyrion the cunning,
Tyrion the sufferer, and finally Tyrion the wise
is destined to be the ultimate king
of this whole long Odyssey.
“A long and bloody tale.
To be honest I was drunk for most of it.”
Hi guys it’s Susannah and Debra and we are The Take.
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