Question for ASOIAF fans

[gryphonsegg]

It's been a couple of years since I read A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords (and I have no desire to re-read them or to read the book that is also known as Everyone You Like Dies Horribly), but the discussion surrounding the new HBO series has me curious about something. There's been discussion about whether the decision to show Tyrion with prostitutes in the first episode is an unnecessary addition or an interesting character note that establishes Tyrion as "a lecher" earlier in the TV series than in the books. In fact, there's been a surprising-to-me amount of talk about how lechery is significantly characteristic of Tyrion, when I don't remember him being any more lecherous than most of the men in his culture. Yes, he hires prostitutes in the books, but that seems to be very normalized in Westeros, and plenty of the other noblemen in the books hire prostitutes and/or take advantage of vulnerable women who are not prostitutes on a more frequent basis than I remember Tyrion doing. Like I said, it's been a while, and also I realize that I'm an outlier when it comes to sexuality and gendered social behavior, so my question is, did I miss or forget something that implies Tyrion's lechery goes above and beyond what his culture frames as normal, to the point that it stands out as one of his major character traits? I'm seriously wondering, because I really don't think he stands out as a lecher in a series that also contains Robert Baratheon and Theon Greyjoy and the number of bastards without whom the plot wouldn't work.

Given my history, the most likely explanation is that I just missed something. Another possible explanation is that Tyrion's lechery stands out to the audience not because it's over the top compared to his society's norms of masculine sexual behavior but because he has a disability that places him outside of our society's norms of masculine physical ability and attractiveness. Maybe he's not being compared to Robert, Theon, those guys on the Wall who go to prostitutes even though it's officially forbidden because that's not one of the important parts of their vows, or all those knights and mercenaries and reavers who go around raping peasants or hiring prostitutes depending on which is more convenient at the time; maybe instead he's being compared to other fictional little people, who usually aren't portrayed as being sexual in any way unless it's played for laughs. Then again, it's possible that I'm more likely to find people saying anything at all about Tyrion because he's one of the most popular characters. From the brief time I dipped a toe in ASOIAF fandom, I seem to recall Theon having quite a few fans, but not as many as Tyrion, and Tyrion is probably the first or second most popular character among the wider, less intense circles of fandom. So maybe the seemingly disproportionate attention paid to Tyrion's lechery is an artifact of his popularity.

Comments

SPOILERS

[ithiliana]

Just my take--I've read the series once (after I heard Sean B. was cast in it), and am currently re-reading it (and adore Tyrion).
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I do not think that Tyrion is shown in the book as more lecherous--the scene in the adaptation where he's in a brothel, and his brother sends in multiple prostitutes, is not in the book--and nothing like it is in the book (I think the scene between Tyrion and Jon is longer in the book--and they talk more.) There's his backstory which includes the young woman he rescued and married (and a complicated set of trickery where his father claims she's a whore, and Jaime hired her, and sets up a gangrape in which Tyrion is forced to participate) which is a thread throughout (especially when the fact that his father lied to him comes out).

The book version is definitely set up as being physically uglier than Dinklage (different color eyes, very ugly face, different color hair)--and as someone who would not in any way attract a "normal" woman.

If I'm remembering correctly, when he and Sansa are forced to marry, he does not rape her. He does have a relationship with Shae, a young woman who is a prostitute in the first two books (that ends badly--as I recall his father takes him from her--and that ends even more badly, will avoid that major spoiler!).

Tyrion CARES for the women he sleeps with, even though he keeps trying to convince himself that he shouldn't trust a whore (of course in this series, there's hardly anybody anyone can trust).

I think the character's sexuality is important--it is important to him, and he often snarks at others about his raging sexual appetites (but he's always taking the offense and saying more outrageous things about himself than anybody else can say.) (In fact that's his advice to Jon--take what they can attack you wish and claim it and throw it back at them and it cannot hurt you).

But readers see Tyrion when he's alone, when he's with Shae, and Sansa--times that he's very different than he's with his family or the other nobles or fighters.

He does not rape women unlike yeah a whole bunch of others. He seems to like and care about the women he interacts with much more than many of the men. When Cersei thinks he has his lover (but she doesn't have Shae, it's a young prostitute he's been using as a cover), he works to rescue her and does not ignore her). I think his experience as someone who is othered leads him to have much more sympathy for all those others who aren't noble/male/warriors in the default 'hero' pattern.

And that includes women, especially women who are foorced into or choose to work as prostitutes.

Re: SPOILERS

[gryphonsegg]

*nods* That's pretty much how I remembered it. He did pay Shae to sleep with him, but, as you said, it was because he didn't think anyone would be willing to sleep with him for free, and he tried to set up at least a pretense of a "normal" relationship. I didn't recall him sleeping with anyone else while he had Shae. He didn't rape Sansa even though he could have gotten away with it, and he wanted to avoid the lady who was trying to marry her raped and severely traumatized daughter off to him just so the family could say the poor girl was married to somebody. Maybe some people magnify his lechery in their minds because he talks about sex and gloss over the fact that he talks about it more often than he does it or seeks it. I guess I just read a lot of his talking about sex as just another manifestation of his cynical sense of humor or his tendency to speak bluntly about morally dubious behavior in general when other people of his class would speak in euphemisms or refuse to admit there's anything dubious going on.

[lady_ganesh]

Are people's memories maybe colored by the miniseries, too? Seeing Tyrion with the prostitutes influences them to think of Tyrion as more of a 'lech' than he was in the books?

[gryphonsegg]

I guess it's possible, but I started seeing comments like that in the days right after the miniseries premiered. It doesn't seem like there was enough time for miniseries characterization to sink in, and the comments were in reply to posts that criticized the sex-related changes in the miniseries, as in "The bare breasts were a bit much, but it was a good choice to add the scene with the prostitutes because it establishes Tyrion as a lecher right at the start." And I'm like, "Why is it a good choice to establish Tyrion as a lecher? I don't remember that being an important part of his characterization in the book." And sometimes others chime in to agree that Tyrion is "very sexual" or can be "so crude." I can think of series where Tyrion might stand out in that way, but the series he is actually from is not one of them.

[lady_ganesh]

Yeah, that makes sense. Tyrion sounds awesome, I wish the rest of it didn't sound so rapey.

[gryphonsegg]

Yes, it is full of rape and rape and more rape and other forms of torture and mutilation and zombies and still more rape. Tyrion as an individual character is awesome, but all the neverending horror and misfortune is a bit much.

[lady_ganesh]

Sometimes I wish we could take individual characters and put them in better/more cheering environments. I mean, that's what we do in fanfiction, but you know what I mean.

[gryphonsegg]

Yeah, I know. In my mind, the Hunger Games cast got reincarnated as talking ponies.

Of course, Haymitch can often be seen going *headfence* because he refuses to accept ponyisms like "cutie mark" and "everypony" and others use them at every opportunity when he's around. Compared to being forced to mentor two kids and send them to their deaths every year and to having severe PTSD and access to no other treatment than moonshine, being mildly trolled by talking ponies is a relief.

[lady_ganesh]

Exactly. Napoleon Bonaparte also is in a much less racist canon. Somewhere.

[gryphonsegg]

Maybe he shares a house with Chris Lokisspawn from the otherwise awful Pantheon High and the bunny from WE3.

[lady_ganesh]

And most of the women from Naruto.

[gryphonsegg]

Tyrion lives next door, and my favorite ASOIAF character, Brienne of Tarth, lives across the street from them with Cassandra Cain.

[lady_ganesh]

And Priya and wossname from Dollhouse is their next-door neighbor.

[gryphonsegg]

And sometimes they visit Equestria-where-the-racist-buffalo-episode-never-happened and hang out with the recovering-from-trauma Hunger Games ponies. And Brienne and Cass let the surviving non-evil WE3 characters crash at their place whenever it's needed, and everybody in the neighborhood stops by to pet Bandit and tell him what a good, good, good dog he is. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts!

[lady_ganesh]

OH, and they all have pets! The ones from the Red Fern Grows and Plague Dogs and goddamned Sounder and Mamoru's poor fridged dog too.

[gryphonsegg]

Twice a week, Hinamori from Bleach rides over on Boxer from Animal Farm.