Game of Thrones character spotlight: Tyrion Lannister

Throughout the season, Culturess will analyze Game of Thrones through the lens of a particular character. For this week, we look at Tyrion Lannister.

The best character introductions are ones that sum up the character in a single scene or even a single shot. Other than his father Tywin (first shown painstakingly skinning a deer), no character on Game of Thrones had a more illuminating introduction than Tyrion Lannister.

Our very first glimpse of Tyrion was of him guzzling down a pint of beer in a brothel. Although season 1 gradually revealed different sides of the man pejoratively called the Imp, from his flair for negotiating to his empathy for “cripples, bastards, and broken things,” that first image distills him to his essence.

The target of ridicule by those outside his family and a source of shame for this within it, Tyrion learned to survive by embracing his reputation. He drinks, womanizes, and makes jokes because if he’s going to be treated like a monster, he might as well enjoy it.

As he tells Jon in a memorable line later that episode: “Never forget what you are; the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.” Not even the strongest armor, however, is truly impenetrable.

Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister – Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO

What “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” means for Tyrion

Game of Thrones had a lot going on this week, if not in terms of plot then in terms of character development. Brienne got knighted. Daenerys found out that Jon has a stronger claim to the Iron Throne than she does. Arya had sex for the first time, briefly reconnecting with her human side (and fulfilling shippers’ dreams).

So, why focus on Tyrion? On the surface, his role in the episode might seem peripheral; he had no major scenes of his own, mostly supporting or observing other people’s scenes. But as host of the impromptu fireside gathering in Winterfell’s Great Hall (he provided the booze), he tied the whole thing together, creating a space for the characters to reflect on their pasts and contemplate their futures.

Aside from his ever-present sarcasm, Tyrion has undergone as drastic a transformation as anyone on the show. When Jaime admits that Cersei never intended to help fight the White Walkers, Daenerys chides her Hand for letting himself be fooled by his conniving sister. This echoes viewers who have struggled to reconcile the Tyrion who took Cersei at her word with the clever schemer of previous seasons.

Yet, Tyrion was never as quite as ruthless as he wanted to be, and after his murder of Shae, he lost his taste for violence altogether. It was he who said of the Meereen fighting pits, “There’s always been more than enough death in the world for my taste. I can do without it in my leisure time.” If given the choice, he would rather defuse conflict than stoke it, which makes him an effective diplomat but a rather ineffectual conqueror – the inverse of Daenerys.

Ultimately, he wasn’t outsmarted by Cersei so much as outlasted, underestimating her ability to hold onto grudges and her destructive tendencies. (Remember, when Tyrion last saw Cersei, both Myrcella and Tommen were still alive, and she hadn’t destroyed the Sept.)

More illuminating than his precarious position with Daenerys, though, is his role in the fireside gathering. Give or take Olenna Tyrell, Tyrion has always been the show’s best talker. But whereas before, he tended to use conversation to hide, masking his feelings with quips, this time Tyrion uses talk to, well, actually communicate. His dialogue in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is uncharacteristically devoid of guile.

In a telling line, he muses, as if in passing, “I think we might live.” His companions take it as a morbid joke, responding with laughter, but Tyrion seems sincere. Smart or not, there’s strength in choosing optimism over nihilism, life over death.

That Tyrion is now the kind of person who believes something good might happen is a measure of how much he has changed since that first introduction.

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.