Never drowned a friend at the age of 12. Closest he did was fall in love with a farmer's daughter.

 

Like that's any better.

 

And the Patricide and whatever the word for strangling a prostitute is.

 

Singer Stew was pretty bad.

 

But was he a bad egg at as young an age as Cersei was? Or did he become a major asshole after decades of abuse, mistreatment and shaming? Because I recall nothing of Tyrion being a dick up prior to the book's depiction of him. He whored and drank, but that was about it.

 

Not to mention that most of the nastier things Tyrion did were understandable given the circumstances. Killing a singer who was trying to blackmail him isn't exactly good, but he was effectively saying "Pay me or Shae dies." With Shae, she did bear false witness against him in a trial where he faced the death penalty. I'd certainly want payback under those circumstances, and he didn't have any realistic legal recourse.

As for killing his father ... well I have a hard time faulting Tyrion for killing a guy who abused him for decades, attempted to kill him, and had his wife gang-raped. Even if you shifted it from the gloriously messed up world of Westeros to a modern setting, you could make a very strong case for justifiable homicide out of those facts.

 

To be fair to Shae, it's not like she had the option of not doing that as it was either that or most likely death. Don't think she had any legal venues open to her either, being a foreign whore of the most hated guy in king's landing. That seemed really to be her only out. Don't see her being able to say no to Tywin or Cersei and surviving that. And it's not like she owed Tyrion any particular loyalty. He paid her to pretend to love him and she did her job, it's not like she suckered him in secret, she really just did what he paid her to do.

So yeah, Tyrion might not have liked it but Shae definitely did not deserve to die like that.

 

Well I think this quote actually underlines exactly why you dont kill joffrey. Bad things make you a bad person? Well ok. But as you said Joff hasn't actually DONE anything bad. At this point, you are killing an innocent child... that would make YOU the bad guy.

Especially if you don't buy into the argument that fate is set and unchangeable (and if you do, whats the point of writing a story like this?) then killing people for crimes they have not yet and may not ever commit would actually make you the definition of 'bad person'.

Mmm. I dont know. I see where you are coming from here and you have a point. I actually though always felt the Shae thing was less for the testifying than sleeping with his father. Though who knows.

I suppose it depends how much leeway you felt Shae had. Like.. was she forced to testify? Or did she volunteer cause it gained her something? Did she have to testify to THAT extent? Could she not have testified against tyrion without publicly humiliating him to that extent? Was she FORCED to sleep with tywin (i.e it was rape essentially) or did she see an opportunity to get ahead, get money, or whatever and CHOoSE to sleep with Tywin?

We as the reader don't know the answer to those questions. We can have opinions but we dont know.

Now no matter the answer, Tyrion killing her is probably not a 'just' response. So its not 'good'. But TBH on the scale of 'evil shit done in westeros' its more justified then most. So not good. Maybe bad. But mmm.. understandable? And more gray than a lot of other actions.

 

It's different in the show- the betrayel is much more brutal because she's there for so much longer, and you get a sense that they both care for eachother. She betrays him because she's bitter.

 

Well, one crucial thing to remember is that while it may have personally sucked for Tyrion, Shae actually didn't tip the scales in the trial. She is a lowborn, foreign whore, as low as you can be socially. If she had testified to exonerate Tyrion, no one would have listened to her for even a second and she would have been dismissed. Heck, she wouldn't have been allowed to speak. She wasn't there as a credible witness whose opinion was valued by the lords and ladies present, she was there to make Tyrion suffer by having his personal whore mock him and air his dirty laundry.

Then her relationship with Tyrion was strictly that of being his employee, basically. Sure, Tyrion deluded himself into thinking that she was returning her feelings but that's not on her. When Tyrion fell, and the ire of Cersei and Tywin was focused on him, and by extension her, I don't really see how she could have made a difference, even had she been fiercly loyal to Tyrion. I mean a) Tyrion was a goner, no matter what Shae did so her trying to help him would have been pointless anyway and b) she didn't really have a reason to risk her life for Tyrion. Would you be willing to die for your boss? I wouldn't. I kinda doubt she went to Cersei or Tywin, really doubt she would have liked to be on their radar, seems much more likely either one of them approached her and ordered her to speak out at the trial.

I think it speaks volumes about Tywin that he wanted to sleep with the same whore that slept with the dwarf son that he loathed. As such, again, I think it was Tywin demanding this of her and since she still wants to live and earn money, she agreed.

Regarding consent on that front, well, that's always an iffy thing in feudal societies such as this. I don't think she had any choice in testifying in the trial, in that regard she would be seen as either for Tywin and Cersei or against them and being against them would have most likely meant either death or severe punishment from which she couldn't escape. Didn't Tyrion tell Shae about what his father did to the personal whore of his father after he died? Flogged and driven naked through Lannisport, IIRC. Why would Shae want to go that or similar? As to the sleeping with Tywin, dunno, really. Would Tywin have accepted a no? Even if he did, would Shae have thought she had that option of saying no to Tywin Lannister?

Most likely Tywin ordered her to go to his chambers and service him and Shae suspected she couldn't say no but since this would earn her money and give some protection she agreed, would be my guess at least, so somewhere in-between

But yeah, you're right, we can't know for sure.

Still, Tyrion being bitter and angry at both the trial and the sleeping with Tywin are understandable emotional reactions, but that said him acting upon it by killing her was objectively wrong, and it's not justified at all, regardless of how forced Shae was. Especially since Shae didn't really have a reason to risk/sacrifice herself for Tyrion and Tyrion didn't really have the right to expect that from her. Again, would you die for your boss?

Well, the show white-washes the characters a lot so a lot of the nuance is lost. The main cast are portrayed as objectively better people in the show. Jorah didn't sleep with the Dany look-a-like prostitute for example after his exile when Tyrion stumbled upon him in the show for example, because his love for Khaleesi is just that pure you see, whereas book Jorah was all over that. Similarly, Tyrion also refused to sleep with whores because of his newfound moral highground whereas book Tyrion, one again, did not and is obsessed with the phrase of "where whores come from".

So yeah, show-Shae became this whore with a kinda heart of gold who grew to care for Sansa and Tyrion but then got treacherous when Tyrion was trying to act for her own good and she didn't understand because of her emotions and then she even reached for a weapon when Tyrion stumbled upon her, making his actions seem super justified.

The show shits on all the characters, not exactly news.

 

Purple days was a pretty interesting take on a Joffrey redemption story. Peggy Sue / repeating lives for Joffrey, it takes him an extremely long time. The first 150k words are a great sort of semi-humorous story, then it starts taking itself a bit too seriously and one of the last arcs goes on for a way too long, though it finally is a few chapters past it.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/purple-days-asoiaf-joffrey-timeloop-au.450894/reader

 

I enjoyed the beginning of Purple Days, but yeah, the campaign in Chinaos was pure bullshit. It was just a completely separate story with AU-Joffrey as a protagonist. I can forgive something being so AU that it's just original content, but this wasn't even very interesting and just served to derail everything.

 

@CareOtters what the fuck man Purple Days is shit. The beginning, specifically, I didn't get much further.

 

Yeah that first chapter is absolute garbage. I've read the whole thing and it has some interesting parts. I'd say its only worth reading if you really like the timeloop concept, or if you've exhausted better ASoIaF ff, which doesn't take much work.

 

I'm not saying it was good in any way, just that I enjoyed some of the beginning. Joffrey weeping in terror while clutching a kitten after being repeatedly killed by Starks is a good wholesome image.

 

I don't believe tyrion actually ever tells her about tywins threats. If my memory is correct, the closest he gets is to say its 'not safe' and to think in his head that he should tell her.

I also happen to think Shae had some genuine feelings for him too, rebuffed a bit perhaps by Tyrions own self esteem issues that didnt let him believe she could really fall for him. But theres a couple of chapters where (obviously this is interpretation) you can see hints that just like Tyrion feels more for her than just a whore, she feels more for him than just a paymaster. Admittedly in many of those tyrion accidentally 'rebuffs' her heh.


Mind those are side points. You are, if im honest, 100% correct that Tyrion's response is not a proportional or rational one. And is not 'right' or 'good' by any of our standards.

I think the most you can say for it, is that because we are in his head and see WHY he did it, we sympathize with him. He didnt kill her for 'no reason' or just to be cruel. That doesnt mean it was a proportional or proper response either. But we can mmmm follow the logic and to a *certain* extent sympathize. And likely you are correct much of that sympathy is due to us being in Tyrion's head and suffering with him, while we are not in Shae's head or seeing her views.


Though an interesting aside.... was Tyrion's actions to Shae that wrong in HIS society? Clearly by our morales and systems its very wrong to kill Shae... but it is perhaps more (not entirely but more) reasonable for him to kill Tywin. Yet in Westeros a lord like Tyrion killing a prostitute like Shae is probably a "tsk tsk he really shouldnt have done that" but killing Tywin is an unforgivable offense.

If say, before the whole joffery death bit, Tyrion had just decided to murder Shae, would he even have gone to trial? I suspect most of his peers would at most have been 'offended' but in a "my that's uncouth, murdering prostitutes" sense not a "he needs to be punished for his crimes" sense.

Which isnt perse relevant to an objective ooc discussion of guilt I grant. Its kind of a very shady gray area to talk about whether a societies morales should be judged as right or wrong, or whether there is a more objective right or wrong. Most of *us* would probably judge the westeros morality and law system as crazy and wrong. But Tyrion and his actions are obviously also shaped by that morale code.

 

I didn't get that vibe from Shae at all. I got the vibe that she enjoyed the benefits of being Tyrion's whore. Cersei promised her a knightly husband, so she betrayed him.

She didn't care for Tyrion, she cared for his wealth. Undoubtedly, she slept with Tywin because he paid her. And I imagine Tywin paid her to see what all the fuss was about. It would have to take a magical poon to defy Lord Tywin.

 

My interpretation was that Tywin picked Shae because he was planning on having her executed. Tywin did promise that he'd hang the next whore his son slept with, I think he was intending on keeping that promise.

Of course, Tywin also cared greatly for his reputation - he couldn't allow there to be anyone around that might testify Lord Tywin was a whoremonger too. Best way to keep that reputation is to tie up loose ends. Tywin had a whore that he was planning on executing anyways, and maybe he thought "why not get use out of her before I do?" Nobody would believe anything Shae said, and afterwards he could justify her execution as Tyrion's co-conspirator.

Shae was just doing it for the gold, but I do think it says a lot about Tywin.

 

The prologue of purple days is quite bad, but I enjoyed the rest of the first 100-150k words or so. I find most ASOIAF fan fiction pretty unreadable though.

 

Well again of course all opinion here. But I suspect its a lot more complicated than that. I mean don't get me wrong, i'm not implying Tyrion and Shae are some sort of star crossed lovers. But nor do I think it was a pure business proposition. In actual fact, not surprising considering this is GRRM, I suspect we are in the gray in terms of their relationship. There are some actual feelings and some mercantile elements... where one ends and the other starts is tough to say. This is a trend in a lot of Tyrion relationships. For example him and Bronn. How much is friendship and how much is employer/employee. Its some of both. Even the clansmen. How much is genuine loyalty versus bribed loyalty. In all cases with Tyrion it falls in the gray.

But that said. Keep in mind, its almost impossible for real relations to NOT form in any long standing relationship (of any sort) unless we are dealing with some sort of sociopaths here. i mean for example if you ever had a secretary or administrative assistant. Thats an employee. They are working for you cause you pay them not cause they worship your awesomeness. But over time you are going to develop a relationship and probably (if you arent an assholet) some form of respect and trust. And Tyrion and Shae are a lot more intimate than that.

Shae not only slept with Tyrion, but a good portion of her mental stimulation and social interaction beyond varys and guards (and later on the singer) came from him. I can also buy that a prostitute can fake passion in the moment. And even perhaps a certain amount of pillow talk and interest. But there are limits, especially in dealing with someone as intelligent as Tyrion. I don't think she was skilled or detached enough that every little thing is a lie. Now I also don't doubt that Shae is also being motivated by economics here. But I just dont see it as one sided or mutually exclusive of a connection. If it was purely about money we wouldnt have seen some of the moments we did in the book, and I also doubt she would have stuck around as long as she did (I doubt tyrion is either paying her big bucks or giving her a great life by the middle of book three. Not so much that she couldnt at least try to snare a different knight or lord).


In fact, I actually think shae SUCKS at acting. Sure she fools tyrion somewhat. But as a reader I feel I can always spot the genuine from when she is laying it on thick.

An example of this is in the chapter of CoK when varys visits disguised (and shae recognizes him). If you read this chapter, it seems pretty clear to see when she is acting and when she is not. Even tyrion recognizes it indirectly. She is acting when she is trying to get out of the maid position or after Tyrion slaps her. This is clear to the reader. Compare this to her actions when she offers to help kill Tyrions family members, or other moments of banter and open talk with tyrion. She reads as two different characters. And not as one who is even all that good at hiding her displeasure when Tyrion pisses her off. TLDR: She can't act for shit.

Theres dozens of other examples like the above scattered in the books. I see moments of cringe worthy falseness from Shae and I also see plenty of moments of genuine loyalty and affection to Tyrion. And plenty of times where Tyrion screws it up (when he slaps her after she is clearly trying to build him up. Or the scene where she tells him she wants to help him more and he responds that she helps him best between the sheets).

So, sorry this got so wordy. Essentially, I think she admired Tyrion at times, had genuine affection for him at times, wanted to help him, and even hated him at times (the comparison to her father, etc). I even think if tyrion had more self esteem or a different family there could have been something there. But those are ifs. I also dont doubt the difference in their status, his paying her, etc all were key elements. Maybe even the dominant elements. I'm not sure Shae could even fully untangle in her mind how much of her interest in Tyrion was due to money and how much was due to it being him.

Theres certainly some dependency and consent issues in all this. But it just seems to me a much messier and grayer sort of relationship they had going on than simple prostitute/customer.