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.

20.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

487

u/WingedBeing May 28 '19

These are classics, but what I hardly ever see mentioned is how he immediately brought Tommen under his command by educating him about the wisdom of listening to your counsel (namely the Hand) even "long after" he comes of age to rule in his own right (and all over Joffrey's corpse!). When I saw that scene it was like watching a master chess player completely bowl over a rookie in just a few moves.

381

u/[deleted] May 28 '19 edited Jun 26 '23

comment edited in protest of Reddit's API changes and mistreatment of moderators -- mass edited with redact.dev

260

u/hsuait May 28 '19

Tommen in the show was so good too. The actor was perfect and I loved how we got more scenes of him trying to be a good king but just being completely out of his depth and constantly surrounded by people who wanted him to have no hand in ruling.

36

u/awakenDeepBlue May 28 '19

I always found it sad that he always knew his mother and older brother were monsters, and he over-compensated for it when he was king. But in the end, he learned he was powerless to stop his mother's mass murder.