Why did Tywin's smile keep getting wider and wider at his funeral as time passed? I know that it's supposed to creep the reader out and also add some realism to the scene, but I feel like I'm missing something symbolic here.
Lord Tywin Lannister did not smile. Lord Tywin never smiled. (Tyrion VII, AGOT)
The silent sisters had armored Lord Tywin as if to fight some final battle. […] Even in death his face is noble, she thought, although the mouth… The corners of her father’s lips curved upward ever so slightly, giving him a look of vague bemusement. That should not be. She blamed Pycelle; he should have told the silent sisters that Lord Tywin Lannister never smiled. […] That half smile made Lord Tywin seem less fearful, somehow. That, and the fact that his eyes were closed. (Cersei II, AFFC)
Bloody hell, he’s grinning like a bridegroom at his bedding.That was so grotesque it made Jaime laugh aloud. (Jaime I, AFFC)
It’s not that much symbolic in some arcane way, as it is the ultimate irony: Tywin smiled so rarely in life that the times he did can be counted on one’s fingers, and hated laughter in general—both being laughed at, and smiling himself, and pretty much built his whole public image upon appearing as stone-cold and threatening as possible (the opposite of his father Tytos, who was cheerful and jovial and sank the respectability of house Lannister so low that Tywin “had” to destroy two houses to restore it).
So basically, it’s Dante’s contrappasso.Tywin’s death represents the things he most feared to be associated with. As terrible and frightening he was in life, his death is a literal joke. He died shitting himself in a privy, which makes perfect material for japes (especially since you have this mocking refrain of “does tywin lannister shit gold?” among jesters and commoners). His corpse, although dressed up in full armor, not only horribly stinks but is also made harmless, stripped of his most fearsome feature (his piercing, “unsettling” greeneyes, now closed) with a silly smile on his face that’s incredibly comical, almost grotesque (and it’s very disturbing for Jaime and Cersei to see him like that)
(also, Tywin’s grin is useful for narrative balance, as a counterpart to Jaime’s stream of consciousness as he stands vigil. Tywin’s apparent sardonic smile seemingly interacts with Jaime’s inner thoughts, as Jaime sort of dialogues with his father’s corpse)
How do you see Tywin's relationship with prostitutes?
I see it as GRRM’s way to confirm the notion that Tywin isabove all a raging hypocrite. Thus, it’s super relevant to his character that he frequently visits prostitutes in secret, all the while presenting himself as the paradigm of irreprehensible sexual conduct and shaming Tyrion for his renowned familiarity with brothels. It fits brilliantly with the Lannister theme of “golden” appearances VS rotten substance, adds a new layer to the similarities between Tywin and Tyrion, and makes a lot of sense because of Tywin’s personality. I mentioned in another post Tywin’s misogyny and madonna-whore complex; he thinks of himself as faithful to Joanna’s memory, but having sex with prostitutes doesn’t count as cheating in his mind because, to him, a whore isn’t even a human being. She’s just a disposable object to use, abuse and toss away. Shae’s presence in his chamber wasn’t an isolated case, and I fully subscribe to the theory that Tywin was the Hand of the King who built the secret tunnel to Chataya’s brothelfor his private use.
Anonymous said: do you think Tywin have bastards ?
It’s very possible, although we might never get confirmation in the text.
What do you think of Cersei's treatment of her younger children? Do you think it paralleled Tywin's treatment of her and Tyrion?
As in, Myrcella=Cersei, and Tommen=Tyrion?In some ways, but also, not really. I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to draw a clear cut parallel like this, because, at the end of the day… Cersei is so not Tywin.
Of course, her performance as Authority Figure (both as a parent, and as a ruler) is heavily modeled on Tywin. (and she thinks she’s pretty good at making a Tywin-impression, btw). Tywin’s shadow is stamped all over her—in the way she reprimands Tommen for his meekness, for example, or in her controlling, blackmailing, retaliatory, often manipulative parenting, or in her cult of arrogance that led her to cultivate that aspect of Joffrey’s personality, and most certainly in her tendency to act as if her children were extensions of herself rather than their own person. As readers, we are absolutely supposed to pick up the evident similarities in here, and draw our conclusions ( = Tywin started a malicious cycle of awful parenting, child abuse, and toxic values that Cersei—wittingly or not—perpetuates, and that will culminate in the almost complete obliteration of this family, I’m afraid).
I think that Cersei’s experience with motherhood is VERY different, and vastly more nuanced than Tywin’s experience with fatherhood, though.
Tywin comes from a position of power. His seeing the children as extensions of himself, is a way to defeat mortality. It’s actually very simple. His body will die, but his legacy will thrive through his children, which is also why the kids aren’t allowed to have wishes and personalities of their own, but must be Tywin-clones in pretty much everything.
Cersei comes from a position of powerlessness. Her seeing the children as extensions of herself isn’t a challenge to mortality, but to the system, to her own gender, to everything that stripped her of her agency. Starting from the way they were conceived, Cersei’s children are an act of rebellion, whereas Tywin’s were an act of compliance to the natural hierarchy of things, of perpetuation.In this hypotetical comparison, Jaime and Joffrey are the first born, “privileged” sons; but Joffrey is, for Cersei, a means to an end in a different way than Jaime was for Tywin. To Tywin, Jaime was an asset; to Cersei, Joff was the rising sun through which she’d finally shine; he was everything she was denied, in a form that was accessible for her to manipulate—to inhabit, even. It’s no wonder she spoiled the kid and was blind to his flaws in ways that were INCONCEIVABLE for Tywin, who, yes, had a soft spot for Jaime but was also very demanding of him. (Needless to say, there is an ocean of difference between Jaime’s personality and Joffrey’s. Myrcella & Tommen also are, personality wise, miles away from Cersei & Tyrion; Cersei’s wildfire ambition and raw contempt for the “lesser beasts” is nowhere to be seen in Myrcella, and Tommen never experienced the feeling of being treated as actual sub-human scum by his parents. And the two of them, as far as we can tell, go along very well, unlike Cersei/Tyrion. So, at the very least, you have to concede that Cersei did better than Tywin in not playing her youngest against each other.)
Cersei also loves her children with a fierce, desperate passion that Tywin never experienced. Why? Because she NEEDS them. She physically clung to them to be emotionally stable and to survive the infinite, gut wrenching disaster that was her marriage with Robert. They became her anchor to sanity, the only source of joy beyond Jaime. Tywin never got remotely close to this ancestral, biological codependency with his children. In fact, Tywin only *needs* his children because of dynastic reasons.
I talked about Cersei/Tommen at length here, so I will just add that, though problematic in its own right, I can’t truly see it as an analogous to Tywin/Tyrion, as ableism plays a substantial role in the latter but definitely not in the former, and it’s not a minor difference. Cersei occasionally complains that Tommen embarrasses her, but it’s not comparable to the continuous, long-term, ruthless psychological torture that Tywin inflicts on Tyrion. And, as much as Cersei disapproves of Tommen’s vanilla personality, as much as she eventually adopts a borderline abusive behavior, she would also cut her own wrists open for that child. He is the reason why she agrees to the walk of shame, and also the reason why she survives through it. Good luck picturing Tywin humiliating himself for Tyrion’s benefit. This is really where Tywin and Cersei are millions of miles apart: self sacrifice. Neither is naturally good at it, but Cersei, if pushed, will embrace it for her children.
(though here’s a parallel: Cersei ordering Tommen to whip Pate eerily echoes Tywin ordering Tyrion to rape Tysha. They both force their disobedient child to perform a horrible act of violence on another person, to teach them a lesson. You can definitely see Cersei internalizing Tywin’s methods here.)
Myrcella is somewhat a blind spot, because Cersei doesn’t talk very much of her. The watsonian explanation to this is that, of course, as a girl Myrcella doesn’t bring a lot to Cersei’s table. She can’t be the pinnacle of patriarchal power, she can only become, best case scenario, a glorified victim of said patriarchy, a mini-Cersei. Maybe that’s why she is seldom in her mother’s thoughts: thinking of Myrcella makes Cersei revive her fate all over again. There’s also the fact that Myrcella is currently far away in Dorne, and Cersei doesn’t like to brood over anything that escapes her control (The doylist explanation being, of course, that Martin struggles to write satisfactorily female/female interactions *cough Catelyn and her daughters cough*)At any rate, in contrast to Tywin who started making plans and arranging betrothals for Cersei very early, Cersei refuses to do the same with Myrcella and, in fact, gets furious when Tyrion decides to ship the girl to Dorne:
“What a disgusting little worm you are. Myrcella is my only daughter. Did you truly imagine that I would allow you to sell her like a bag of oats?“ […] “I am Joffrey’s regent, not you, and I say that Myrcella will not be shipped off to this Dornishman the way I was shipped to Robert Baratheon.”
Cersei is pissed that Tyrion bypassed her authority and arranged her daughter’s future without consulting her, but I think she is also genuinely worried for her daughter, and not just for her life. Trystane Martell isn’t a bad match for Myrcella, but neither was Robert for Cersei, on paper. And look how it turned out. I think Cersei was, consciously or not, resistant to use Myrcella as a pawn, and tried to delay the dreaded moment of the girl’s betrothal as much as possible… or was in utter denial about it. Tywin, however? Definitely not the kind of man who misses an opportunity to exploit a child’s potential as a political asset.
So… as you can see, lots of parallels but also interesting contrasts.
I think deep down Tywin loved Tyrion. I know he did awful things to him, but that was his personality, he did bad things to everybody. And I think Tyrion also loved his father even though he didn't show it.
I honestly don’t think Tywin ever loved Tyrion, or even ever tried to.
It’s the only conclusion that makes sense in my opinion. This isn’t your average conflicted father/son relationship, this is a story of straight up child abuse, one in which GRRM doesn’t even attempt to shoehorn a reconciliation as one would probably expect from a prodigal son-kind of narrative (really: how many of us thought that Tyrion would eventually win his father’s respect and even admiration thanks to his wits and personality, before ASOS? That Tywin would finally embrace his dwarf son and recognize his error? But no. No matter how badly he wanted to, redeeming himself in his abuser’s eyes was never supposed to be the point of Tyrion’s arc. Thankfully.)
For one thing, I just don’t buy the idea that Tywin was able to love his child despite his deformity. This is an awfully ableist man in a medieval(ish) society that doesn’t particularly encourage fatherly affection (at least, not the way we intend it), where highborn children are raised by wet nurses, septas and maesters much more than by their actual parents, and disabled children are considered to be better off dead. Even if Tywin hadn’t been, well, Tywin, he’d have very little societal or ideological pressure to form a bond with a disabled child. Tyrion’s dwarfism is both a mark of weakness (unacceptable, for a man like Tywin, all concerned with promoting his house’s image of strength, health, wealth, invulnerability) and a public shame, as it makes house Lannister, and Tywin himself, the butt end of jokes and ableist mockery. Combined with the fact that his birth killed Joanna, the love of his life, that’s all Tywin needs to loathe the kid with a fiery passion from the moment he took his first breath. Of course, much to his scorn, Tyrion is also a trueborn Lannister and, for this, and this only, Tywin concedes him to live – allows him to dress like a nobleman, to have guards, to be nominally respected.
But make no mistake, it’s not Tyrion’s self esteem or dignity or whatnot that he has at heart when he forbids him to take a trip to the Free Cities, or when he unleashes Gregor on the Riverlands in retaliation for his abduction, or when he appoints him Hand in his absence rather than resorting to Kevan or other trustworthy men, or when he destroys his marriage with Tysha – it’s his own reputation and respectability, and that of House Lannister. He protects his pack, and alas, the pack includes Tyrion. Tywin himself says so: “The honor of our House was at stake. I had no choice but to ride. No man sheds Lannister blood with impunity.” And so does Tyrion: “Lord Tywin Lannister cared not a fig for his deformed son, but he tolerated no slights on the honor of his House.” They’re both aware that this is the reason Tywin does anything for his deformed son. The world must know that even a dwarf Lannister is worth more than anyone else. That’s the facade Tywin is determined to maintain. He cannot conceal Tyrion’s deformity, so he demands that Tyrion keeps a profile as low as he can and does his bidding. But don’t believe for a second that he does for Tyrion’s benefit or because he actually cares for him.
Also, I agree Tywin is a terrible person, but he is definitely capable of forming loving bonds with people. It’s not just “the way he is” (as if it could be an excuse). He loved Joanna, and was most certainly loved in return. In his own way, he loved or at least cared for the twins, although he barely showed it. It appears that Genna genuinely adored her big brother, at least until she “disappointed” him. Kevan stayed at his side for all his life (perhaps out of convenience, but still). But with Tyrion, Tywin systematically and deliberately committed to make his life miserable, to make him feel unwanted, to blame him for Joanna’s death, to remind him every second of his disability and how unfit he is to be the heir to Casterly Rock (“Whenever his father’s eyes were on him, he became uncomfortably aware of all his deformities and shortcomings”). Best case scenario, he… tolerated him.
Did he ever feel empathy for him, or at least a degree of compassion? I really don’t think so. I can’t say for sure, because there’s no Tywin pov in the books, but does it even matter? Doesn’t Tyrion’s abuse speak for itself? Do we need to hear Tywin’s voice about this - the abuser’s voice? (I think this is exactly why grrm never wrote tywin’s pov. We shouldn’t bend over backwards to find redeeming angles in his treatment of his son – sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and an awful father is just an awful father)
As for Tyrion loving Tywin… more than loving him, Tyrion wanted to be loved by him. The abuse and humiliation Tywin inflicted upon him shaped Tyrion to the point that he grew used to it and learned to be grateful for the rare moments when his father treated him with a modicum of human decency (can you imagine how frightening Tywin must have been to baby Tyrion?) –it’s no surprise he still swings between fearing him, hating him, and a semi-conscious desire to emulate him or at least draw his attention, like Cersei. There’s a part of Tyrion that inevitably puffs with pride when Tywin acknowledges he’s capable enough to be Hand (the other part is incredulous, and there’s yet another part that is furious because he –correctly– guesses that Tywin has turned to him only because his favourite son is m.i.a. and perhaps dead)
But even in his earliest chapters, Tyrion fantasizes about killing him, and it’s clear he’s had these fantasies since forever:
“I used to start fires in the bowels of Casterly Rock and stare at the flames for hours, pretending they were dragonfire. Sometimes I’d imagine my father burning. At other times, my sister.” (AGOT, Tyrion II)
“Where to begin? I am a vile little man, I confess it. […] I have wished my own lord father dead, and my sister, our gracious queen, as well.” (AGOT, Tyrion V)
He dreamt of the sky cell. This time he was the gaoler, not the prisoner, big, with a strap in his hand, and he was hitting his father, driving him back, toward the abyss… (AGOT, Tyrion VI)
I think… it speaks. Tyrion wanted to be recognized by Tywin as a person – not a “half” man, a useless creature or the family’s black sheep. I think this is one of the reasons that eventually triggered his crossbow against his father. Even with an arrow pointed at him, Tywin underestimates and patronizes Tyrion, his rage, his desperation, a terrible mistake in hindsight because this only makes Tyrion angrier and hungrier for recognition.This is why he suffers so much after murdering him. It’s not just the fact that he is a patricide, a kinslayer, that he has turned into the monster everyone thought he was – all of this hurts terribly, but on top of that it’s the fact that killing his father didn’t feel as liberating as he thought he would be; it didn’t feel as retribution, because not even in his final seconds Tywin looked at him with a glimmer of respect in his eyes and even his final words were of disregard and rejection: you are no son of mine (what I said earlier, about grrm deconstructing the whole idea of Tyrion “winning” his father’s respect? this directly echoes the “you are my son” of Tywin putting Tyrion in charge in AGOT, but places the final tombstone upon any expectation of this relationship evolving somehow on a positive note).
ETA:
I approached this ask the way I always do, that is, trying to determine whether there is textual evidence to support the anon’s proposition, and whether GRRM did in fact intend or want the readership to intend the relationship that way. As I explained, the answer is probably no to both.
However, there’s the fiction GRRM is writing and there’s reality.
It was brought to my attention that this reasoning is intrinsically flawed and even harmful, because trying to tell if there are feelings of love by analyzing the actions of abuse promotes a dangerous either/or dichotomy between love and abuse (”If I love you, I can’t abuse you”, and vice versa; “If there are signs of abuse, there can’t be love” and vice versa) that is actually part of the abuse culture. This is a very, very valid objection. The most appropriate way to answer this question would be “So, what?” or “He may have loved Tyrion, but it’s irrelevant”. (I’m gonna admit that my first instinct was to answer exactly this way, but then I decided to go back to the text and expand the notion, and my initial gut reaction went somehow lost in the process)
So, let me clarify a couple of things.
Whether Tywin loved Tyrion or not is ultimately:
a) IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY, because we aren’t in his head. He’s the only one who would know his true feelings for Tyrion, and we have no access to his pov.
b) IRRELEVANT. Even if he loved him, this wouldn’t change, mitigate, contradict or put in another perspective the abuse he inflicted on Tyrion. Love and abuse can coexist in the same person, and abusive actions aren’t necessarily coming from hate, disinterest or cruelty; they can be perpetrated by a loving, caring mind too. This, naturally, doesn’t minimize or excuse their devastating effect on the abused.
do you think Jaime and Cersei loves Tywin ? I've always thought they loved, or at least admired the politician but not the father (and it's undersantable, he was an awful father!) Especially for Cersei.
That sums it pretty well. Tywin became for them, very early on, the only role model available. And boy what a role model he was. The man everyone in the seven kingdoms feared. The former Hand, who was rumored to be the actual ruler of the realm behind a mad and inept king. Tywin was powerful, respected, feared. He made sure his children respected and feared him, as well. All the three Lannister siblings (Tyrion included, of course – but I will leave him aside for now or it gets too long) have this fear/admiration for him; they hate him, but they also want to be like him; they crave for his respect and his approval.
The twins in particular, I think, loved him in a twisted way, but this love was closer to a cult of personality and family pride (so typically Lannister), than to real affection. Tywin was a very distant and cold parent, and had this habit of disposing of his children as he liked – not just Tyrion whom he despised, but the twins too, who looked just every bit as pure Lannister perfection. Granted, he didn’t abuse and humiliate them as he did with Tyrion, but he still used them as political tools. Cersei was his bargaining chip to raise house Lannister even higher in the social ladder, and for this he sold her to a brutelike a brood mare, as Cersei herself poignantly puts it (she’s never forgiven him, not just for marrying her off, but for marrying her off to the wrong king). Jaime was his golden heir and he fucked it up when he joined the Kingsguard and for this Tywin always resented him, because he messed with his plans. Not once Tywin gave a rat’s ass about what his children wanted, what would make them happy. All that mattered to him was the family legacy, not the happiness of the individual members.
I think it’s interesting to consider how the twins react to Tywin’s death. They both feel disoriented and nostalgically reflect on his greatness, but their mourning is also punctuated by a distinct lack of genuine grief. They also both feel like it’s time to take Tywin’s place in society, but in different ways and with different attitudes.
Of the two of them, Cersei seems to be the most strikingly affected by Tywin’s departure. I think she is the one who most idolized his father, internalized his lesson and tried the hardest to emulate him. Think of the way she finds the almost comical circumstances of his death actually insulting, or how she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge Shae’s presence in his chamber, in her iron (and uncharacteristically naive and romantic) certainty that her “lord father had no use for whores […]. After our mother died he never touched a woman”. Or how she’s personally offended that Lollys’ child might be named after Tywin. She thinks of Tywin as a god, and now that he’s fallen she feels lost and more vulnerable than ever (“If Tywin Lannister was truly dead, no one was safe”). In the immediate aftermath of his death, she is often overwhelmed by a sense of irreparable loss and the acute fear that now that the fearsome alpha is gone, “the lesser beasts move in”, but she also constantly thinks about her father’s greatness, drawing strength and comfort from the thought of being his blood and his legacy, a lioness of the Rock made in his father’s image:
By the time they left Maegor’s Holdfast, the sky had turned a deep cobalt blue, though the stars still shone. All but one, Cersei thought. The bright star of the west has fallen, and the nights will be darker now. (AFFC, Cersei I)
Lord Tywin’s blood was in her. I am a lioness. I will not cringe for them. (ADWD, Cersei II)
Still, it’s not love she feels. Not only, at least. That almost religious-like worship is mixed with barely suppressed resentment. To Cersei, Tywin’s death is not just a tragic loss, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to finally take his role as the most powerful man in the seven kingdoms, which she immediately seizes (or tries to). In contrast with her earlier grief and thinking of him as a star and stuff, his death makes her feel oddly liberated and empowered:
Cersei thought of all the King’s Hands that she had known through the years: Owen Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelsted, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom. (AFFC, Cersei III)
In life, Tywin would keep her reined in, constrained in those strictly feminine roles she hates so much and basically agency-less; would always belittle her merely because of her gender, even going as far as giving the Handship to her loathed dwarf brother (having to stomach Tyrion as Hand was a terrible slap in Cersei’s face, because it was proof that Tywin was going to entrust with political matters a son he considered an abomination but not her). Now that he’s dead, Cersei obsesses over proving that she’s his equal – in fact puts herself in direct competition with him:
The queen felt strangely calm. She remembered the first time she had lost a tooth, when she was just a little girl. It hadn’t hurt, but the hole in her mouth felt so odd she could not stop touching it with her tongue. Now there is a hole in the world where Father stood, and holes want filling. (AFFC, Cersei I)
“Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man,” [Mace Tyrell] declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. “We shall never see his like again, I fear.”You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before you. [AFFC, Cersei II]
If Lord Tywin could see me now, he would know he had his heir, an heir worthy of the Rock. [AFFC, Cersei VIII]
He had been a great man. I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei’s sire. [AFFC, Cersei II]
Even after his death, Cersei is haunted by how condescendingly her father treated her, and is determined to prove that of all his children, she is the one worthy of being his heir. Almost spitefully, she commits to become so great that his memory will pale in comparison. But, of course, the reality is quite different. Not a single person in the Red Keep takes her as seriously as they did with Tywin, and it infuriates her:
No one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her. It is all because I am a woman. Because I cannot fight them with a sword. They gave Robert more respect than they give me, and Robert was a witless sot. [AFFC, Cersei V]
I think Cersei’s ambivalent relationship with her father is emblematic of her attitude towards the patriarchy. Tywin is the epitome of patriarchal power and Cersei kinda hates it for making her a helpless victim, but also flirts with it because she wants it – she wants to become the patriarchy herself, instead of beings subjected to it.
Jaime’s feelings for Tywin are somewhat more subdued because, of course, of all the Lannister siblings he was victimized the least by him. Although Tywin never forgave him for entering the kingsguard, his negative impact on Jaime’s life isn’t remotely comparable to the one he had on Cersei or, worse, Tyrion. Jaime never had to fight tooth and nail to make Tywin acknowledge his existence – he was the firstborn son, being important was part of his birthright. If anything, his struggle was breaking free of the responsibility of being the heir, rather than winning it. Jaime is also the one who is in the position to react most lucidly to his death – with Cersei already on her way to paranoia after Joffrey’s loss and Tyrion, well, being the actual murderer and suffering from severe ptsd for what he did. Of course Jaime feels guilty for having a hand (eh) in Tywin’s death by setting Tyrion free:
“I commanded the eunuch to take him to a ship, not to your bedchamber,” he told the corpse. “The blood is on his hands as much as … as Tyrion’s.” The blood is on his hands as much as mine, he meant to say, but the words stuck in his throat. Whatever Varys did, I made him do. (AFFC, Jaime I)
but this guilt is more a rationalization on his part than actual visceral grief. Which he can’t muster up. He feels more numb than devastated:
It was queer, but he felt no grief. Where are my tears? Where is my rage? Jaime Lannister had never lacked for rage. “Father,” he told the corpse, “it was you who told me that tears were a mark of weakness in a man, so you cannot expect that I should cry for you.” (AFFC, Jaime I)
interestingly Cersei has more or less the same blank reaction – she can’t cry and she sorta apologizes to his father’s corpse for it, asking him what he’d expect from her:
My lord father. Should I scream and tear my hair? They said Catelyn Stark had clawed her own face to bloody ribbons when the Freys slew her precious Robb. Would you like that, Father? she wanted to ask him. Or would you want me to be strong? Did you weep for your own father? (AFFC, Cersei I)
(of course Tywin’s children would associate tears with weakness)
Anyhow. My impression is that Jaime doesn’t know exactly how to feel about his father. He lacks Tyrion’s seething hatred of him, or Cersei’s fiery ambition to replace him. He isn’t repulsed enough by his crimes and ruthlessness, but he also cares too little for power to have an all-around admiration for him. He is, mostly, too self centered, too distraught by his own existential crisis to feel strongly about his father. There is a bit of dialogue that amuses me to no end, it’s when Jaime talks to aunt Genna:
“I am sorry for your loss.”“I had a new hand made, of gold.” He showed her.“Very nice. Will they make you a gold father too?” Lady Genna’s voice was sharp. “Tywin was the loss I meant.” (AFFC, Jaime V)
Losing his father is only secondary to losing his hand. Honestly, though, I don’t blame him. That hand was what ruthlessness was for Tywin: the source of his power,the reason people feared him. As the natural heir, Jaime always knew he would replace his father, one day, kingsguard or not. That Tywin died the way he did, it’s certainly traumatic, but it was supposed to happen anyway sooner or later, as part of the cycle of life; the real tragedy is that the moment Jaime is required to step forward as the head of house Lannister, he’s a crippled man, a lion with no claws. The feeling of inadequacy that now haunts Jaime is, I think, one of the most important reasons why he embraces knighthood (or tries to) and slowly disassociates from his Lannister identity.
But of course being Tywin’s legacy is a burden that even Jaime, in all his identity crisis and angst about being a true knight and shit, can’t ignore:
“Sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna’s breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there’s some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak… but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you.” (AFFC, Jaime V)
Genna’s words stung. No wonder the next chapter he channels Tywin’s ruthlessness and his own reputation as a dishonorable man to manipulate Edmure into surrendering with steady cruelty. With a trebuchet, Jaime thought. If his aunt had been there, would she still say Tyrion was Tywin’s son? That’s the equivalent of saying “are you finally proud of me, Father?” That’s his way to prove Genna wrong – make no mistake, it totally irked him to be compared to a bunch of lesser Lannisters. The siege at Riverrun is where he stretches his Tywin muscles, testing if, and to which extent, he can actually follow in his father’s footsteps.Because, yes, a part of Jaime absolutely wants to be like Tywin. A part of him even feels that being more like Tywin is the only way to be respected as a person, now that his legendary swordfighting skills are off the table. Luckily, and unlike Cersei, there is another force pulling him in the opposite direction: his desire to be a true knight, embodied by Brienne.
