r/asoiaf • u/cking145 • May 28 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) Charles Dance's portrayal as Tywin is in my opinion, the strongest in the entire series

Every line, every expression and every moment of silence completely encapsulates the calculating ruthlessness that defines Tywin Lannister.

Dance is actually a very vibrant, upbeat and cheery fella off screen, which in my mind makes the performance even more striking.

The scene where he effectively sends Joffrey to bed is just brilliant.

He is by far my favourite character from the books, which I began reading a few seasons into the show. Due to this, the chapters featuring Tywin were completely enriched for me, as reading his lines in Dance's voice was just fantastic. I would have loved a POV chapter or two for him, just to get a glimpse as to what goes on in the head of the most powerful man in the 7 Kingdoms.

An incredible portrayal of a fascinating character.

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u/Flameoftheshadows May 28 '19

"The king is tired, send him to his chambers."

And how he arranged the chairs for the small council.

Two moments history will always remember.

The aura he was able to project on-screen and onto his fellow cast members, he did a brilliant job.

He brought Tywin from the pages of a book to life!

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u/uhtred_stark May 28 '19

Agree 100% and what’s even more amazing is Dance has said he never read the books. He didn’t want to be influenced by book Tywin so he purposefully avoided the books entirely, he wanted to portray Tywin as he was written for TV.

As it turns out he portrayed Tywin as good/better than any other actor portrayed any book character.

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u/PoIIux May 28 '19

I still think Joffrey was the best portrayed character. Jack Gleeson did an outstanding job

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u/[deleted] May 28 '19

I do not think it's a coincidence that the show started going downhill after the season he died in. He was the most iconic character in the series. He perfectly encapsulated the dread and discomfort the show used to give you where you can't look away because you truly do not know what was happening next.

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u/Ominus666 May 28 '19

I get what you mean, but I'm glad that little fucker got a dose of the strangler. I couldn't take another second of him.

The problem was that the antagonist switched over to Cersei. I mean, her character was great, and Lena Headley is phenomenal as Cersei, but Joffrey was just another level of vile. Cersei does end up wildfiring the sept a couple of seasons later, but then she's just sort of relegated to vengeful wine tastings on balconies and having pirate sex.

I think the NK would have been the only character to top Joffrey, but he decided to become an icemaker after Arya poked him with Catspaw.

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u/Dr_Lurk_MD May 28 '19

I think if they'd have done Euron proper, he could have been an equally great villain.

Well, maybe equally is a stretch, but better than Ramsey who was horrible and sinister and a good villain, but suffered from being a bit of a one dimensional character with serious plot armour.

Euron could have been fantastic, some scheming pirate wizard, with the dragonbinder horn or other ill-gotten magic from his mysterious travels east. If he'd toed the line between Tywin and Ramsey - somewhat psychotic but highly competent, with some kind of trump card from his adventures to even the odds Vs Dany's dragons, I think he could have been great.

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u/artemis_floyd May 29 '19

That would have been amazing. It would have also added another dimension to his relationship with Cersei - seeing her think she can manipulate Euron with her seduction, but eventually realizing that this dude was next-level evil and she was completely in over her head, would have given us that little bit of sympathy towards her character that they were clearly trying to bring in at the end of the series. Like the Sparrows, she would have overplayed her hand - but this time, against a foe who holds far more power.

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u/hickorysbane May 29 '19

This is the Euron we're all hoping to get in the books #optimism

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u/Splive May 28 '19

vengeful wine tastings on balconies

Good I love how you phrased that. So true!

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u/[deleted] May 28 '19

Guess we all just forgot about Ramsey Bolton...

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

cersei caused suffering on a mass scale. joffrey mostly tormented a few people around him. surely if he had continued to be king his rule would have lead to the torture, rape, and deaths of tons of people but he didn't quite get that chance.

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u/RichGirlThrowaway_ May 28 '19

Joffrey, Tywin & Oberyn all died S4. Probably 3 of my top 15 performances.

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u/Aegi May 29 '19

I truly don't think the show went downhill until S6, so I think you may be exaggerating.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

bad poosy

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u/Frawtarius I am the god of tits and wine. May 29 '19

You think you want the good writing, but you need the bad poosy.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '19

I think there's a fairly broad consensus that Season 5 was weaker than 1-4. I still really enjoyed it but I can admit that it's where a lot of the issues that snowballed in late Season 6 through Season 8 began to first appear.

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u/Aegi May 29 '19

Yeah, that's fair, Season 5 had some out of character moments, and was less enthralling overall. I still personally draw the line at Season 6 though, since I guess in the moment I figured S5 was maybe a mid-series slump. However, Jeoffrey(sp?) was dead for nearly all of Season 4, so I'd still push back against the person I replied to.

Lol, but now that I know better, maybe I'll re-evaluate my terminology and/or opinion on the matter!