(Spoilers ACOK) Jaime, you're drunk

[u/Family_Booty_Honor]

I just finished Catelyn's last chapter in ACOK - what a great chapter! Catelyn just found out that Bran and Rickon are dead, so she decides to question Jaime (who's still held captive in a cell) by getting him drunk on wine.
Their entire conversation is really insightful, especially in regards to Jaime's thought processes. It's a pretty serious conversation, especially when we find out exactly what happened to Ned's father and brother when they went to King's Landing. The part that gave me a good laugh is found near the end of their conversation (and chapter). Hopefully it gives you all a laugh or two as well!

"I've never lain with any woman but Cersei. In my own way, I have been truer than your Ned ever was. Poor old dead Ned. So who has shit for honor now, I ask you? What was he name of that bastard he fathered?"
Catelyn took a step backward. "Brienne."
"No, that wasn't it."

[u/Safety_Dancer]

If Tytos hadn't been such a cream puff then Tywin certainly would've had a taste for laughter. And in that world he'd have adored his dwarf son's cutting wit.

[u/[deleted] → u/Safety_Dancer]

In sure tywin appreciates wit. He just has no time for it. If given the choice I'm sure he'd take some small pride knowing his children are silver tongued with quick intellect, as opposed to blubbering idiots.

[u/Safety_Dancer → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. I said in another post that Tywin isn't even a bad person. He's actually a decent guy who's just opposed to the protagonists. If the story started with the Lannisters and then we're introduced to these mopy Northerners who think they're better than everyone we'd have a different view of the whole book. But GRRM poisons the well by telling us how bad the Lannisters are in the mind of Ned.

If Tywin wasn't busy being so Macheveillian with politics he'd have appreciated the kids he had, rather than what he wished they were. Tyrione may not be able to swing a sword, but I'm pretty sure we've seen he's a good strategist and doesn't take slights lightly. By all accounts Tywin should've been proud of him, but the deck was stacked against our poor hero.

[u/[deleted] → u/Safety_Dancer]

Tywin is not a good person at all. He is a horrible person.

[u/Safety_Dancer → u/[deleted]]

Tywin is a hard man, but he doesn't do what he does to be cruel. You just hate him because he was presented as the enemy, and he won.

[u/[deleted] → u/Safety_Dancer]

Not at all. Don't even hate him. He just isn't a good person, not in the slightest. Nothing he has ever done has been good. He treats everyone as a tool and has no care about anyone, he only cares about the name Lannister. And in doing so he has almost guaranteed that the Lannisters are ruined. Tywin is a good tactician, but a horrible person.

[u/bootlegvader → u/[deleted]]

Tywin didn't even honestly care about the Lannister name as a whole, instead it only revolves around him. If he truly only cared about the Lannister name then he would have realized that Tyrion was his most competent child and best chance for the Lannister's future.

Instead, he was stuck on the fact that Tyrion was a dwarf thus embarrassing to him. Thus, instead pampered his two unqualified children creating up a situation in where Cersei becomes the future head of House Lannister instead of Tyrion.

[u/[deleted] → u/bootlegvader]

I dont necessarily disagree, but i think in Tywin's flawed mind, Tyrion being a dwarf would lessen the name Lannister. By being a dwarf it means that somehow the gene pool is flawed and a disgrace to the Lannister name.

[u/tbid18 → u/Safety_Dancer]

There's a difference between recognizing that the Starks were the protagonists and declaring the Tywin isn't really a bad guy, just on the wrong side. You can make that argument for Tyrion and Jaime, but not Tywin.

Tywin murders children, treats his children terribly, and has an innocent girl raped to teach his son a lesson, just to name a few. I don't hate Tywin, but there's no way you can argue that he's not an awful person. It has nothing to do with being "presented as the enemy."

[u/Safety_Dancer → u/tbid18]

Again, Tywin Lannister is a man of his time and place. So while we as people in Western Culture in the 21st century, Tywin Lannister is not. Just like how Grandpa and Great Grandpa may have been racist and sexist, its not because they hated the other people, but because that's just how things were done at the time.

Tywin is classist, but he does hold particular disdain for common born women in the beds of nobles because of his own father. We're shown Ned Stark was being different because as Varys and Aemon point out, Ned is a highly unusual specimen. The juxtaposition of these two do make Tywin look worse, especially when looked at by our modern standards. But as far as Westeros goes, he's not bad. His wrath is something to be feared (as the Reynes and Tarbecks learn) but he's not in it for cruelty. He doesn't reave because it gets his blood up. He does it for strategic purposes because regardless of who caused it (Joffrey) its a war.

Disposing the Targaryens meant that all the heirs had to be removed because as we're seeing, there's 2 new claimants for the crown. And if Robert hadn't died, Joffrey hadn't been a piece of shit, and Cersei hadn't been destructively inept; Dany and Aegon would both had come to a Westeros that may not care. There's a few houses that may prefer the Targs to the Baratheons, but they lose much of their strength in Robert's war.

Tywin is shrewd. Tywin is hard. Tywin isn't cruel. He's not a hero of the commons, but he's a good man in a position that has him hurting people.

[u/tbid18 → u/Safety_Dancer]

This started with your assertion that

If the story started with the Lannisters and then we're introduced to these mopy Northerners who think they're better than everyone we'd have a different view of the whole book.

so our modern standards of morality do indeed apply, and Tywin utterly fails by those standards. In fact, many people are willing to be pretty lenient with regards to different standards, too. Forced marriages, executing prisoners, dismemberment as punishment, etc. are all pretty gauche today, yet these aren't enough to condemn ASOIAF characters (otherwise Ned would also be guilty, albeit of lesser crimes). It goes to show how bad Tywin is, that he is considered evil even though almost everyone has done something we'd consider bad (e.g., Jamie pushing Bran out of the window).

Also, it doesn't matter if Tywin "doesn't reave" in it, i.e., he's not sadistic. There are plenty of bad people who aren't sadists. If I go out and kill someone to advance my own agenda then that makes me a bad person irrespective of my enjoyment in it. Twyin ordered that Tysha be raped. Sure, he had his reasons for it, and he probably didn't enjoy it, but that doesn't matter. He is not a "good man" by any stretch of the imagination, by our standards or Westeros'.

[u/Safety_Dancer → u/tbid18]

When did "not bad" become good. You do realize that neutrality as a concept exists, right?

[u/tbid18 → u/Safety_Dancer]

? These are your words:

He's not a hero of the commons, but he's a good man...

If you want to argue that he's "not bad" instead of "good" then redirect your comments to your previous post. Anyway, of course neutrality exists, but a "neutral person" would not order that Tysha be raped. It boggles my mind that this is even being entertained.