This analysis explores Tywin Lannister's strategic approach to consolidating power for House Lannister, highlighting his calculated maneuvers, pragmatic diplomacy, and ultimate downfall due to his ruthless nature and strained family relationships.
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What did A Song of Ice and Fire look
like from Tywin Lannister's perspective?
Let's take a look. Hi everyone, this is
Robert. Welcome to Indeedgeek. If you
like theories, background, history, and
lore about A Song of Ice and Fire, The
Lord of the Rings, and The Witcher, then
this is the place for you. Welcome. This
is a sort of follow-up to a previous
video looking at Tywin's early life and
plan to boost House Lannister's fortunes
from the relatively lowly status they
were at when he was a child. And by the
start of A Song of Ice and Fire, Tywin
had achieved a lot. The Lannisters were
the second most powerful family in the
Seven Kingdoms, ostensibly behind only
the royal family themselves. But of
course, that still left one rung to
climb. The court in King's Landing was
full of Lannisters, Cersei, Jaime,
Lancel, Tyrek, and Lannister loyalists.
Illen Payne, Pycel, Boris, Blount,
Marinrant, and so on. But Tywin himself
stayed in Castasterly Rock as he had
done for most of the last two decades.
As was his way, he was waiting for the
right moment to arise, and then he would
act decisively. The moment arrived when
Catelyn Stark captured Tyrion at the in
at the crossroads. Things had been tense
before then, but this was a direct
attack on Lannister honor. Tywin may not
have loved Tyrion, but he couldn't allow
a Lannister to be captured like that
without being seen to respond forcibly.
And Tywin probably found out very
quickly. Even as he was being captured,
Tyrion thinks to himself that the free
rider with the gold coin in his pocket
would fly to Castasterly Rock like an
arrow. If not him, then someone else.
Riders would be after them within the
day. Birds would take wing, and surely
one of the riverlords would want to
curry favor with his father enough to
take a hand. Catelyn gives them the
slip. But Tywin does hear quickly and
responds quickly, not by obviously going
to war, but by sending the mountain and
some men dressed as briggins to pillage
their way through the Riverlands. There
was some deniability there, but still
everyone knew who was behind it. The
mountain is not exactly easily mistaken
for someone else. Remember, at this
time, Robert Baratheon was still alive
and well, and Ned Stark hand of the
king. Sending a Lannister army into the
field then would have been tantamount to
starting a civil war. And Tywin actually
wasn't after a war just then. He was
aiming to draw out Ned Stark. He rightly
judged that Ned would want to personally
lead a party out to confront the
mountain. This was, after all, an attack
on his wife's homeland and the king's
peace. Tywin thought he could capture
Ned and swap him for Tyrion. The problem
was that he didn't tell anyone in King's
Landing this plan, presumably because he
had to keep up that plausible
deniability, and sending a raven was a
bit risky. So, when Jaime hears about
Tyrion, he angrily confronts Ned on the
streets of King's Landing, leading to
Ned's injury. Jaime realized that
attacking the hand of the king was not a
good look for a member of the King's
Guard, so he rode off to the safety of
Castly Rock then, by which point the dye
was cast. Tywin then starts to amass a
couple of armies while Ned is out
injured for a week and King Robert
decides that it's a good time to go on a
long hunting trip. Finally, news arrives
that the king is dead and Ned has been
imprisoned and then finally that Rob has
called to the banners and is marching
south. That seems to have been the final
prompt for Tywin. Jaime leads an army
out of the Westerlands a week later,
winning the battle at the Golden Tooth,
then pushing on to Riverun, defeating
Edmure on the field and besieging the
castle. Meanwhile, Tywin himself with
Kevin took out two other key Riverlands
castles, Ravenree Hall and Harrenhal. He
ended up camped around the inn at the
crossroads. Why there? Well, it was a
great position to head anywhere on good
roads. King's Landing lay south on the
King's Road, the Veil of Aaron east,
Winterfell North, and Riverrun West. He
could react quickly to a fast-moving situation.
situation.
And why attack the Riverlands at all?
Well, because it was a key ally of the
North, who at the time were the only
real opponents in this war. Renley and
Stannis hadn't yet declared themselves,
though Tywin was wary of potential
attacks from either, and because it's
joined up his forces across the middle
of Westeros, from Castly Rock to King's Landing.
Landing.
Tyrion arrived at that point with his
hill tribes just in time for Tywin to
make his next move. He was delighted to
hear that the Starks were now moving
south down the king's road. He would
bring his army up to meet them. The
battle itself, the Battle of the Green
Fork, shows us Tywin's strategic mind at
work and also some of where his blind
spots are. He comes up with a plan to
place the hill tribesmen on the left of
his army, assuming that they will break
easily and further assuming that Rob,
inexperienced as he is, will overcommit
his forces there and leave himself
exposed to being encircled or
outflanked. As he says, the Stark boy is
a child. No doubt he likes the sound of
war horns well enough and the sight of
his banners fluttering in the wind, but
in the end it comes down to butcher's
work. I doubt he has the stomach for it.
As it turns out, the Hill tribesmen do
not break. And it isn't Rob in charge of
that army anyway. It is Roose Bolton, a
much more cautious general. Tywin gets
the victory, but it is far from
decisive. And soon after that, he learns
that Rob has outsmarted him, too,
sending a force over the twins,
defeating Jaime<unk>s army at the
Whispering Wood and breaking the siege
of Riverrun. More bad news followed.
Jaime is captured. Ned, a key bargaining
chip, has been beheaded and Sir Barrist
and Selme cast out of the King's Guard.
Renley has also now declared himself
king and allied himself with the
powerful Tyrells. Tywin now has a host
of issues to turn his attention to. He
would ideally have wanted to take
control in King's Landing as hand of the
king to stop Cersei from doing anything
else rash and to prepare its defenses in
case Stannis or Renley do attack there.
But if he did, he would be giving up all
the land he had claimed in the
Riverlands, giving Rob a strong grip on
the center of the continent. If he
headed west to deal with Rob's army at
Riverrun, he left the King's Road open
for Roose to head down to King's Landing
with his army of northerners. If he
stayed still, he ran the risk of being
caught in a not particularly defendable
position and caught between two or even
three armies. So, he sent Tyrion to
King's Landing to sort that mess out. We
don't have time here for a full
breakdown of Tywin's relationship with
Tyrion, but this at least shows that he
recognizes his intelligence and
political acumen. It is pure pragmatic
expediency. As he says to Tyrion later,
"There is a tool for every task, and a
task for every tool." Tyrion was clearly
the tool for that particular task. Tywin
himself with his army would move the
short distance to Harrenhal. It may not
be in the best of repair or have the
best of reputations, but it was a large,
strong castle close enough to his
original position to allow him to react
to whichever threat presented itself
next. And in particular, it guarded the
northern approach to King's Landing. He
further sends the mountain, Amry Lorch,
and Vargo Hot to double down on their
pillaging of the Riverlands. It would
cause damage to his opponents and
potentially draw Rob and Edmure out to
try to defend their bannerman.
Bad news, however, keeps coming. As
Tywin stays at Harrenhal, Stannis
declares himself and spreads the story
about Jaime and Cersei. Beric Dondarrion
refuses to die despite seemingly being
killed several times, and Rob takes a
fast-moving part of his army into the
Westerlands, destroying a new Lannister
army, being trained and winning several
battles. Tywin's apparent inactivity
here frustrates many on his side and on
Rob's. Rob had hoped to draw Tywin out
by his raids in the Westerlands. But
although it happens very much off page,
it seems that this is when Tywin starts
his alternative approach to winning the
war through diplomacy rather than on the
field of battle. Later, when Tyrion
comes to see him in the Tower of the
Hand in King's Landing, we get this exchange.
exchange.
Tywin starts, "Did you come here just to
complain of your bed chamber and to make
your lame japes? I have important
letters to finish. Important letters to
be sure. Some battles are won with
swords and spears, others with quills
and ravens.
We have to join up a lot of dots, but
there are three broad areas where this
diplomatic push works. First, with the
marriage of Rob Stark to Jane
Westerling. It seems that Tywin came to
a deal with Lady Cibil Spicer, Jane's
mother, to make it happen. We learned
some of the details about this much
later after Rob's death, when Jaime
questions Jane and Cibil about whether
Jane might be pregnant. She is not, said
Lady Cibil, as her daughter struggled to
escape. I made certain of that, as your
lord father bid me. Jaime nodded. Tywin
Lannister was not a man to overlook such
details. Unhand the girl, he said. I'm
done with her for now. As Jane fled,
sobbing down the stairs, he considered
her mother. House Westerling has its
pardon, and your brother Ralph has been
made lord of Castmir. What else would
you have of us? Your lord father
promised me worthy marriages for Jane
and her younger sister. Lords or heirs,
he swore to me, not younger sons, nor
household knights. Mention was made of a
match for my son as well. A bride from
Casterly Rock. Your lord father said
that Reel should have joy of him if all
went as we hoped. Even from the grave,
Lord Tywin's dead hand moves us all,
thinks Jaime. So, Tywin bribed House
Westing with a new lordship and some
advantageous marriages. How did Cibil
Spicer make Jane and Rob fall in love?
Well, I covered that in another video,
but suffice to say here that I think
magic and love potions were involved.
The result of that was Rob being forced
to abandon his attacks on the
Westerlands and charge back to Riveron,
then the twins, to attempt to patch up
his rocky alliance with the Freys. Which
brings us to the second focus of Tywin's
politicking. Walder Frey. He needed to
be persuaded to dispose of Rob through
what became known as the Red Wedding. It
seems that Walder had long admired
Tywin, was not averse to switching sides
for political advantage, and relished
hard negotiated deals like the one he'd
struck with Rob and Cat earlier in the
story. We can easily imagine quite a
drawn out negotiation here, perhaps
started by Tywin allowing the Frey
prisoners he held in Harrenhal to be
ransomed back. But out of all this,
Walder got a lot. Not just a pardon and
protection for House Frey from the
Lannisters, but also Emman Frey would be
made Lord of Riverun. Lancel Lannister
would be made Lord of Dar and made to
marry a Frey. Davin Lannister was also
to marry a Frey. And Joy Hill, a
Lannister bastard daughter, would marry
one of Walder's bastard sons.
The third focus of this diplomacy was
Roose Bolton, who would be made new
warden of the North. Again, we don't
know exactly when this started,
certainly not with any commitment from
Roose before the Battle of the
Blackwater, but we can see evidence of
it developing. In particular, when Jaime
is at Harrenhal and Vargo Hot is cut off
his hand, Roose decides to send him on
to Tywin with an escort of Bolton men
rather than back to rob his king, but he
is very concerned that Tywin might think
that he was responsible. Roose doesn't
spell it out, but Jaime understands what
Roose is saying. He wants to stay on the
right side of Tywin Lannister.
Vargo Hote's crime is mine, says Roose,
or may seem so in your father's eyes.
And therein lies my small difficulty. He
gazed at Jaime, his pale eyes
unblinking, expectant, chill. I see,
thinks Jaime. You want me to absolve you
of blame, to tell my father that this
stump is no work of yours? Jaime
laughed. Later, Roose sends a third of
his army, all Stark loyalists, to their
deaths at Duskondale in an apparent move
to show his new loyalties. And out of it
all, the Boltons got control of the
North. So that is Tywin's strategy for
dealing with Rob Stark and the
Riverlands. The net gain for him is not
just elimination of an enemy, but also
placing allies and politically
advantageous marriages throughout the
Riverlands and the North. But as I said,
that diplomacy by Raven took place over
several months, culminating in the Red
Wedding. Tywin may have kept his hands
clean there, but he was very much a part
of it. It wouldn't have happened without
his involvement.
Back in Harrenhal, he does finally make
a move west when word reaches him of
Renley's death. Judging that Stannis
would now be kept busy for a while
finishing off the siege of Storm's End
and trying to merge his and Renley's
armies, he heads off to tackle Rob's
army, who were at that point still
proving a problem in the Westerlands.
Not that he gets far. Edmure marches out
of Riverrun to stop him crossing the Red
Fork River, which he does. Fortuitously
for Tywin, this allows news to reach him
quicker that Stannis had taken Storm's
End quicker than expected and was
preparing to sail for King's Landing
very soon. Tywin was needed back there.
He marches his army back to the
headquarters of the Blackwater Rush,
where he joins forces with the Tyrells,
newly signed up to his side. Although
Tywin was surely involved here, this was
largely done at Tyrion's instigation and
through Littlefinger as intermediary,
offering Joffrey as husband to Marjgery.
The newly joint army then heads down
river, arriving at King's Landing just
in time to break Stannis's attacking
force. The chain and wildfire had done a
great job in slowing the assault, but
the arrival of the Lannister and Tyrell
army was the thing that really turned
the tide of the battle. Tywin then takes
up his office again as hand of the king
and carries on with his plotting. And we
should pause briefly to acknowledge here
that Tywin had turned the tide of that
war with astonishing efficiency and
brutality. After the Red Wedding, the
threat from the north was over. Stannis
had also retreated to Dragonstone, his
tail between his legs, a diminished
threat. Renley was dead, and the
Greyjoys were focusing their attentions
far from King's Landing. It wasn't all
down to him, but it must have felt like
a huge victory. Finally, he had achieved
his ambition to make the Lannisters the
most powerful family in the Seven
Kingdoms. His grandson was the king. He
was the hand, and there was no serious
opposition to their rule. Of course,
hubris can be a terrible thing. The next
few months show Tywin trying to cement
Lannister rule. Tyrion is made master of
coin, another role he is well suited to,
but Tyrion sees it as an insulting
demotion. Tyrion is also married off to
Sansa Stark, giving the Lannisters a
claim to Winterfell and blocking a
Tyrell plot to marry Sansa to Willis
Tyrell. He has the sword Ice reforged
into two smaller Valyrian steel swords,
one for Jaime and one for Joffrey.
Marjgerie is married to Joffrey, then
engaged to Tommen, Oberin Martell,
welcomed onto the small council. It is
perhaps ironic that at this moment of
the height of Lannister power, it is
Tywin's children that frustrate his
plans more than anyone else. Jaime gives
away the Valyrian steel sword he has
given and refuses his father's order to
leave the king's guard and become Lord
of Castly Rock. Cersei accuses, then
frames Tyrion for Joffrey's death,
leading to the trial by combat and
Tyrion being found guilty. Jaime
releases him. Then Tyrion kills Tywin.
We don't know what Tywin would have done
had he lived. Probably dealt more
competently with the Iron Bank debt
issue, kept the Tyrell Alliance solid,
and turned his attention to the other
threats to Lannister rule. The Greyjoys,
Stannis still, and in time young Griff
and Dany. We probably catch a flavor of
it when Kevin is briefly King's Regent,
though one wonders whether eventually
one of Tywin's enemies would have caught
up with him. There are hints that the
Red Viper was already poisoning him, and
surely Varys would have tried to deal
with him, too. But of course, in the
end, it was Tyrion. And we get one last
insight into Tywin's character before he
dies. Sheay, the sex worker Tywin had
banned Tyrion from bringing to King's
Landing, was in Tywin's bed. The austere
image Tywin presented to the world was
not what he was really like. That and
Tywin's response to Tyrion asking about
what his father had done to his other
love many years earlier with the trigger
that finally pushed Tyrion over the
edge. But if it hadn't been Tyrion, it
surely would have been someone else.
Tywin finally reached his goal of
ultimate power in the Seven Kingdoms.
But at what cost? He had no friends,
just allies and family. And when they
turned on him, it was over. Ultimately,
Tywin was the victim of his own
ruthlessness and double standards.
If you'd like to see more A Song of Ice
and Fire videos like this, there's a
link to my playlist on the left of your
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Thank you. There's a link to my Patreon
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for watching. That's all for this time.
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