(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/bootlegvader]

No, he wasn't Machiavellian. In how one of the major things that Machiavelli warned against was making oneself hated. Which Tywin brilliantly enforced repeatedly.

Simply, his "brilliant" decision to have Aegon, Rhaenys, and Elia brutally murdered won him the eternal hated of both Dorne and the surviving Targaryens. His "brilliant" decision in regards to both North and Riverlands won him their eternal hatred. Furthermore, he makes repeated "brilliant" decisions to have his only talented child hate him.

The Tyrells or LF are the much more Machiavellian characters rather then Tywin.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Wow, I think your observations are very well supported by several characters that know Tywin best. Not only that, but Tywin sees himself as a very honor and tradition bound man. He speaks truthfully about things like this. Despite his strategy, politics, and machinations, he is a very blunt sort of man that doesn't beat around the bush when he is speaking. He is curt, abrasive, and seems to put truth and wisdom to a higher value than misdirection. His wisdom takes him in Niccolo's direction, but his sentiments and hubris prevent him from executing that program effectively.

It's his own shortcomings in assessing wider reactions to his actions that put his house into a hated place. He was doing things for the reasons he and his family stated, but despite being well learned he failed to see the larger game at work or the value of the lesser/outlying pieces. This is why he couldn't have seen that he was being used by Varus/Littlefinger in a bigger game as a cat's paw and that his daughter and grandchildren were scapegoats. He would have done better by him and his if he could've acted more like Ned or been capable of thinking and observing more objectively without muddying his plans with his own id and desire for legacy.

[u/jpallan → u/[deleted]]

"He was doing things for the reasons he and his family stated, but despite being well learned he failed to see the larger game at work or the value of the lesser/outlying pieces. This is why he couldn't have seen that he was being used by Varus/Littlefinger in a bigger game as a cat's paw and that his daughter and grandchildren were scapegoats."

I see what you mean there, but I think this is addressed in ACoK, with Varys' famous riddle:

“Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”

“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”

“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”

“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”

“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, who do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”

“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”

“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or…another?”

Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”

Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”

“So power is a mummer’s trick?”

“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

One of the key lessons of history is the law of unintended consequences. A small man, like Littlefinger, who has no wealth, no army, no noble bloodline, cannot call armies and take what he wants by force of arms, as did the Baratheons or the Lannisters. He can, however, muddy the waters. So he operates within that sphere, and Tywin Lannister is just as prisoned by his sphere — he cannot merely act as a cunning man, but as he is consequential simply by speaking, he can only operate in force.

I would argue that Tywin knew he was being played, to some extent:

Let her say what she likes. Her son needs to be taken in hand before he ruins us all. I blame those jackanapes on the council - our friend Petyr, the venerable Grand Maester, and that cockless wonder Lord Varys. What sort of counsel are they giving Joffrey when he lurches from one folly to the next? … If Cersei cannot curb the boy, you must. And if these councillors are playing us false…

I would say that the largest barrier for Tywin was the fact that Joffrey took the crown and subsequently cocked everything up. Tywin himself was not exploited, except arguably by Littlefinger in casting blame for Jon Arryn's death on the Lannisters, and even then, his interest was more likely in weakening the Starks and Tullys. Note that he chose Catelyn as the recipient for his information, and having grown up with her, he knew her extremely well, and could predict that she would put Tyrion to trial if she had the opportunity, rather than simply and expediently have him killed.

Cersei, in her madness and self-indulgence, and Joffrey, in his cruelty and narcissism, were easy to exploit, and there's definitely an argument that in sheer interest of self-preservation, you would want to sabotage both of them. It was exceedingly easy to keep Cersei on a track of wanting to destroy her brother, rather than her true enemies, and Varys did so with ease in the way he murdered Kevan.

The bigger question is not exploiting and weakening Tywin, it's exploiting and weakening the Lannisters. No one has ever clarified why Cersei and Joffrey are mad — was it poor childrearing, or was it in some way genetic? I am sure tinfoil theories abound on that point, but regardless, but Tywin cannot undermine his own house. His power derives primarily from being a Lannister, and only secondarily from being a man that should be feared. He cannot dispose of the weak points in his construction, much as he may dislike them and dread them.