rude

that’s fair

not again

I haven’t written about this, actually, nor really thought about it.

I mean there’s the obvious, which I think is that book Tyrion is not as nice as show Tyrion. Show Tyrion is sort of like the abridged version of Tyrion.

But also I think that one of the biggest fundamental differences between book and show Tyrion is that book Tyrion is a performer. The “never forget what you are” quote that is our first big impression of Tyrion, that’s an essential piece of understanding Tyrion’s character. A lot of people misinterpret Tyrion because of this early quote because they hear it and think that Tyrion doesn’t care what other people think. He’s confident, wise, witty, and a bit of a super crip. This is what a lot of people see Tyrion as in the beginning of the story, until of course his performance starts to crumble going into ACOK and ASOS, and then when we meet him again in ADWD he’s an absolute mess of a person.

Show Tyrion is not like this, because show Tyrion is the performance. He really is the awesome dude that doesn’t care what other people think that a lot of readers seem to want to think he is. He’s fun, he’s cool, but there just isn’t that much to him. He’s not as deep as book Tyrion because he just doesn’t have as many layers, but worst of all he’s a stereotype. One of the things that I love so much about Tyrion is that we are initially presented him as someone who embraces his difference, who teaches Jon Snow to wear who he is like armor. And it’s a good quote. But the thing is, although wearing the things people use against you like armor can empower you, it’s also really difficult. And ultimately in the books we see the harm that prejudice does, we see how Tyrion can’t keep up the performance forever and internally he is a very lonely, damaged person.

The other problem with show Tyrion is that he’s a wet blanket. He’s boring. The show erases a lot of the layers in Tyrion’s disability narrative but they still have to take him to that place in ADWD where he kills Tywin and Shae and then suffers the emotional fallout from that, but since show Tyrion lacks all of the emotional baggage of book Tyrion, the anger and pride and loneliness, he just kind of sits around looking sad for a while until people convince him of what he should be doing. Book Tyrion would not do this, because book Tyrion is all about being his own person, even if that means dragging himself down into a hole.