Episode 119: A CLASH OF KINGS, TYRION IX: "We the People, Part 1" SHOW NOTES!

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.          

Welcome to the one hundred and nineteenth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “We the People, Part 1: An Analysis of ACOK, Tyrion IX,” in which Princess Myrcella leaves for Dorne. Oh, yeah, and the city erupts into violence as Joffrey finally goes too far, but mostly, this chapter’s about the Dorne thing.

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• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
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• Lord Nick
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• Lord Gene the Splendid, Master of Coin, Warden of Tampa Bay who claims that the recent repairs made to his enormous pleasure barge came about after a close friend of his named Royal T. Reasury left him an inheritance.
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• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
  
  

Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Lord Micah, Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane, one of our small council patrons asks:

Here's an AU for a future episode. What changes for the War of Five Kings if Horas and Hobber Redwyne (for some reason) never went to King's Landing in A Game of Thrones, thus giving Renly a Redwyne Fleet that could be used? Does he attack Dragonstone with it? Does he have time? Does the fleet take Dragonstone for the Lannisters much sooner than AFFC after Renly's death?

So, thank you Lord Micah for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotaCast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, access to our NotASlack for our two highest tiers and bonus episodes like our first two parts of of “The Second Coming”: our full analysis of TWOW, The Forsaken! We will be back to the recording studio next week to record part 3 of “The Second Coming.” If that or the other patreon benefits interest you, consider heading on over to patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF to join our patreon!

Absolutely. And thank you to all of the messages we’ve received on patreon lately from Anna, Lorena, Lord Charles Tyrell of Highgarden, Thucydides, Lord of Plagues, Kaitlyn and Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf, & The Pillar of Autumn. We really appreciate all of your messages, encouragement and passion!

But enough about patreon. When we last hung out with Tyrion, he had hosted a small council session in which Littlefinger was dispatched to arrange the Tyrell-Lannister marriage alliance while the stability of King’s Landing hung on a knife’s edge. Let’s find out how Joffrey nearly gets his ass knifed in this synopsis of ACOK, Tyrion IX! 

Synopsis

The girl never wept. Young as she was, Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born. And a Lannister, despite her name, Tyrion reminded himself, as much Jaime's blood as Cersei's.

To be sure, her smile was a shade tremulous when her brothers took their leave of her on the deck of the Seaswift, but the girl knew the proper words to say, and she said them with courage and dignity. When the time came to part, it was Prince Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who gave him comfort.

What a lovely start to this chapter. Remember this moment. It’ll be the happiest moment of this chapter.

From atop the deck of King Robert’s Hammer, Tyrion looks down at the parting ceremony, ruefully wondering about whether it’s all that smart to be sending this ship along three other ships to escort Myrcella to Braavos. Wait, Myrcella is going to Braavos? Yes. It’s convoluted, but let’s simplify here. They’re heading off to Braavos first, going to wait there for a bit, and then sail down to Dorne. If Stannis was monitoring the seas, he would never suspect that they’d spend Myrcella to Braavos first before they went to Dorne. And Tyrion hopes that Stannis wouldn’t risk the Sealord of Braavos’ wroth by stashing Myrcella there for a little while before they went to Dorne. 

Tyrion asks the captain if he knows their orders, and the man does. They’re going to sail, avoid Dragonstone at all costs, and if they meet any enemies on the water, they’d either engage the ship if it’s just one ship. If it’s more than one, then Myrcella’s boat (The Seaswift) will run and be escorted by The Bold Wind while the other ships do battle against the other ships.

If Lord Stannis knew of this sailing, he could not choose a better time to send his fleet against us. Tyrion glanced back to where the Rush emptied out into Blackwater Bay and was relieved to see no signs of sails on the wide green horizon. At last report, the Baratheon fleet still lay off Storm's End, where Ser Cortnay Penrose continued to defy the besiegers in dead Renly's name. Meanwhile, Tyrion's winch towers stood three-quarters complete. Even now men were hoisting heavy blocks of stone into place, no doubt cursing him for making them work through the festivities. Let them curse. Another fortnight, Stannis, that's all I require. Another fortnight and it will be done.

Myrcella kneels in front of the High Septon, who Tyrion describes as fat as a house, to receive the blessing from the Faith. The old man drones on and on to Tyrion’s irritation. But when he’s finally done, Tyrion promises a reward of a knighthood once Myrcella is safely delivered to Braavos.

As he made his way down the steep plank to the quay, Tyrion could feel unkind eyes upon him. The galley rocked gently and the movement underfoot made his waddle worse than ever. I'll wager they'd love to snigger. No one dared, not openly, though he heard mutterings mingled with the creak of wood and rope and the rush of the river around the pilings. They do not love me, he thought. Well, small wonder. I'm well fed and ugly, and they are starving.

Yeah. You aren’t wrong Tyrion. Bronn is alongside Tyrion. Cersei is there too, ignoring Tyrion and making adoring smiles on Lancel. Cersei, uh, okay. Maybe don’t do that given the true rumors flying around about your love of family. 

But speaking of Cersei, she had been conspirin’ of late. Oh yeah. Big plans. She’d pretended to go to Baelor’s Sept to chat with the High Septon. But really she was going to hang out with Ser Osmund Kettleblack and his brother Osfryd and Osney. And what conspiracy did Cersei plan with these rogues? To purchase her own sellswords! Oh no! This conspiracy is going to have major plot implications … right? (No. Wellllll at least not until A Feast for Crows)

Well, let her enjoy her plots. She was much sweeter when she thought she was outwitting him. The Kettleblacks would charm her, take her coin, and promise her anything she asked, and why not, when Bronn was matching every copper penny, coin for coin? Amiable rogues all three, the brothers were in truth much more skilled at deceit than they'd ever been at bloodletting. Cersei had managed to buy herself three hollow drums; they would make all the fierce booming sounds she required, but there was nothing inside. It amused Tyrion no end.

The ships shove off from the King’s Landing docks then accompanied by the sound of horns. Tyrion sees Myrcella waving from the deck of the Seaswift with Ser Arys Oakheart standing behind her. Prince Tommen cries, and Joffrey, being Joffrey, tells him to shut up and that princes don’t cry. Sansa corrects Joffrey by saying that Aemon the Dragonknight cried when Princess Naerys married Aegon the Unworthy. And Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk died crying after striking mortal wounds on each other. In response, Joffrey says, “Hey, really good point now I think about it.” No. He tells Sansa that he’ll have Meryn Trant murder her if she doesn’t stfu. Classic Joffrey.

Tyrion wonders if Cersei is so blind to Joffrey’s faults as the ships make their way down the Blackwater Rush. Spoilers: Yeah. She is. Speaking of those ships and their captains, Varys had told Tyrion that the captains weren’t traitors. So, they’d probably not turn Myrcella over to Stannis. But then again, Varys wasn’t the most untrustworthy of folk about these parts.

I rely too much on Varys, he reflected. I need my own informers. Not that I'd trust them either. Trust would get you killed.

Speaking of untrustworthy folk, there’d been no word from LIttlefinger. Varys suggested that LF was dead, but fat chance. Most likely, the Tyrells were busy rejecting the marriage alliance with Mace Tyrell not liking the possibility of Margaery getting into bed with Joffrey.

Anyways, Cersei indicates it’s time to go, and Bronn gets Tyrion up into the saddle. Usually that was Podrick Payne’s task, but the boy had (thankfully) been left behind in the Red Keep for today’s festivities. As they trot back to the Red Keep, Tyrion notices gold cloaks holding the crowds back. He takes note of the party in relation to where he is. Jacelyn Bywater in front with armored lancers. Aron Santagar and Balon Swann were behind with the king’s banner, the Lannister lion and crowned stag sigils. And Joffrey was following the bannermen next to Sansa and between Sandor Clegane and Ser Mandon Moore. Behind them was a sniffling Tommen with Preston Greenfield riding shotgun for Tommen. Behind them, Cersei, Lancel and the moron knights known as Meryn Trant and Boros Blount. 

Tyrion decides to ride along with big sis Cersei. Behind all of them was a whole crowd of retainers: the High Septon in his litter, Horas Redwyne, Lady Tanda, Jhalabar Xho, Lord Gyles Rosby coughing his way through the ride back with others and more guardsmen behind them.

The unshaven and the unwashed stared at the riders with dull resentment from behind the line of spears. I like this not one speck, Tyrion thought. Bronn had a score of sellswords scattered through the crowd with orders to stop any trouble before it started. Perhaps Cersei had similarly disposed her Kettleblacks. Somehow Tyrion did not think it would help much. If the fire was too hot, you could hardly keep the pudding from scorching by tossing a handful of raisins in the pot.

The party moves through the fishing square and moves through the Muddy Way before starting the ascent up Aegon’s High Hill. A few people hail Joffrey, but hundreds more stayed silent and watched on. Lannister crimson rises through an ocean of hungry men, women and children. Cersei laughs, and Tyrion is wondering if Cersei’s spidey sense is going off just like his. Probably, he thinks. Probably not, I think.

Halfway along the route, a wailing woman forced her way between two watchmen and ran out into the street in front of the king and his companions, holding the corpse of her dead baby above her head. It was blue and swollen, grotesque, but the real horror was the mother's eyes. Joffrey looked for a moment as if he meant to ride her down, but Sansa Stark leaned over and said something to him. The king fumbled in his purse, and flung the woman a silver stag. The coin bounced off the child and rolled away, under the legs of the gold cloaks and into the crowd, where a dozen men began to fight for it. The mother never once blinked. Her skinny arms were trembling from the dead weight of her son.

The wretchedness of this paragraph gets me hot against Joffrey. The callousness. It really burns me up inside. 

Cersei tells Joffrey to leave the woman as she’s unable to be helped, and the woman snaps out of her stupor and starts screaming that Cersei is a whore and a brotherfucker. Over and over again. 

And then someone throws shit at Joffrey. Sansa gasps and the “king” curses and demands to know who threw shit at him. He offers a hundred golden dragons for someone to rat out the smallfolk who did it. Someone says that it came from above. People start shouting and cursing and pointing. Sansa begs Joffrey to let him go, but Joffrey won’t. He order Sandor Clegane to head into the crowd to bring the criminal to justice.

Sandor gets off his horse and tries to make his way into the crowd, but a wall of people hold the Hound back. Everyone starts pushing and shouting and trying to get away from Sandor Clegane.

Tyrion smelled disaster. "Clegane, leave off, the man is long fled."

"I want him!" Joffrey pointed at the roof. "He was up there! Dog, cut through them and bring-"

A tumult of sound drowned his last words, a rolling thunder of rage and fear and hatred that engulfed them from all sides. "Bastard!" someone screamed at Joffrey, "bastard monster." Other voices flung calls of "Whore" and "Brotherfucker" at the queen, while Tyrion was pelted with shouts of "Freak" and "Halfman." Mixed in with the abuse, he heard a few cries of "Justice" and "Robb, King Robb, the Young Wolf," of "Stannis!" and even "Renly!" From both sides of the street, the crowd surged against the spear shafts while the gold cloaks struggled to hold the line. Stones and dung and fouler things whistled overhead. "Feed us!" a woman shrieked. "Bread!" boomed a man behind her. "We want bread, bastard!" In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant. King Joffrey and King Robb and King Stannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone. "Bread," they clamored. "Bread, bread!"

Tyrion brings his horse quick up next to Cersei and orders them back to the Red Keep immediately. Cersei nods. Jacelyn Bywater commands the lancers to make ready. They lower their lances. Joffrey is spinning around in his palfrey with people grabbing his legs. One hand grasps the “king’s” leg, and Mandon Moore slashes with his sword. Tyrion orders everyone to ride forward and slaps Joffrey’s horse. 

The masses scatter in front of the oncoming riders, and Tyrion and Bronn ride through them. A rock flies past Tyrion’s head. A cabbage hits Mandon’s shield. Gold Cloaks gets trampled by the mob. Sandor Clegane vanishes. Aron Santagar gets pulled from his horse. Balon Swann drops the king’s standard and draws his sword, slashing left and right. A peasant stumbles in front of Joffrey, and he rides her down. 

And suddenly the madness was behind and they were clattering across the cobbled square that fronted on the castle barbican. A line of spearmen held the gates. Ser Jacelyn was wheeling his lances around for another charge. The spears parted to let the king's party pass under the portcullis. Pale red walls loomed up about them, reassuringly high and aswarm with crossbowmen.

And that is part 1 of ACOK, Tyrion IX! Boy, this chapter. It’s my favorite half of a Tyrion chapter in ACOK! (It’s also my favorite Tyrion chapter in full in ACOK!) What did you think of this chapter, Emmett?

Depth

This is definitely my favorite Tyrion chapter in ACOK, and maybe my favorite Tyrion chapter, full stop. As you say, it’s got everything: the full range of George’s talents brought to bear, from the big picture of the bread riots to the more intimate character moments that will determine how Tyrion interacts with that bigger picture. The thread that connects it all is catharsis: the arousal of pity and terror, a purgification both emotional and, in this case, literal. It is a confrontation in the public square with everything that has been denied, in multiple senses of that word. We’ve been building up to this chapter for quite a while with #RiotWatch in the foreshadowing sections, a powder keg getting ready to burst. Now it has, all over the city and all over ACOK. The riot is the equivalent in ACOK to Ned’s downfall in AGOT or the Red Wedding in ASOS. This isn’t the climax of the book, that is still a ways off, but this kicks the book into roller coaster mode.

You’re right about this not being the climax, but it’s a moment of intense narrative payoff. Martin planted the seeds for the riot throughout the narrative that the city is hungry, the city is angry, the city doesn’t like the Lannisters. I bullet-pointed all of the #RiotWatch foreshadowing from earlier in ACOK:

• Tyrion I: City on the brink of starvation
• Sansa II: Mentions of unrest and starvation in the city
• Tyrion III: the gold cloaks are foraging for food outside of King’s Landing
• Tyrion IV: Food isn’t coming into King’s Landing
• Sansa III/Tyrion V: Joffrey is crossbowing starving peasants
• Tyrion VII: The smallfolk are down to eating cats
• Tyrion VIII: Littlefinger mentions how little food is available in the market

And then a riot in this chapter. Setup and payoff. Writing 101. I think what makes this especially good setup and payoff is how it fits organically into the framework of a story which has the high lords playing their game of thrones and preventing the smallfolk from attaining their rain, healthy children and summer. The smallfolk are striking back against their oppressors, and the loudest voices don’t advocate Robb, Stannis or Renly. They don’t even cry out against the Lannister regime so much. They scream for the most powerful king in the realm: King Bread.

• Farewell to Myrcella
  • It’s easy to reduce Tyrion IX in memory to the riot, but before we get to the fireworks factory, George focuses our attention on Myrcella’s departure
  • On the surface, this is little more than a red herring for the chapter’s purpose, to catch us off guard with the riot and so enhance the tension and excitement
  • But on reread, I began noticing all the ways this scene feeds into what’s about to happen and the larger themes and images that dominate Tyrion IX
  • On a literal level, there’s no connection. It’s not like the people are rioting because Myrcella is leaving or because they disapprove of the Dornish
  • If you think about it, however, this was guaranteed to happen whenever the entire royal family and all their hangers-on were coaxed out beyond the Red Keep
  • After all, that’s why Tyrion has sellswords scattered throughout the crowd: he was anticipating such a possibility, just not the size and scope of it
  • The reader is not alone in our awareness that King’s Landing is a powder keg on the verge of catharsis; our POV character is very much aware of it
  • Yet they have to be here, to see Myrcella off, to maintain the shadow on the wall. They have to pretend nothing’s wrong, otherwise, there definitely will be. You have to act like the royal family in order to be the royal family
  • Yet Tyrion IX, perhaps more than anything, is about what happens when the shadow fades. When the image falls apart. When political legitimacy dies
  • All the pretenses don’t help. They don’t change the raw material facts that outlive the shadows: you are starving, they are not, and they are all conveniently here
  • The Lannisters have pushed the narrative that they are in charge as far as they possibly can, and the catharsis of ACOK Tyrion IX is that narrative coming apart
  • George builds this organizing principle, the face of power on the verge of breaking, into this chapter from the very beginning, from the opening words:
    • The girl never wept. Young as she was, Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born.
  • Myrcella is keeping it all together, in multiple senses. Like Robb at the beginning of Catelyn’s POV in this book, she is hyper aware that all the world is a stage and she has the spotlight; she is the center of this perfect projected political tableau
  • Robb couldn’t help but mess with his crown, nervous before the camera’s gaze. Myrcella is pure poise, knowing all her lines and moves, a princess born
  • And yet...Tyrion can’t help but think to himself that she’s not a Baratheon in truth. She’s all Lannister. There is so much pride and pain mixed into that sentiment
  • On the one hand, Tyrion clearly loves and is proud of Myrcella. Bronn wishes Tommen was the king; Tyrion will toy with the idea of Myrcella as queen
  • When Tyrion thinks of Myrcella as being Jaime’s blood, the secret daughter of the one relative he loves, he is affirming their bond. It’s very sweet!
  • But it is precisely that hidden parentage that is putting them all in danger from Stannis. It is that danger that haunts Tyrion’s thoughts, preventing him from focusing purely on his pride and love for his niece; he’s worried about what happens if Stannis should get hold of the girl he called an abomination
  • She’s a princess in actions, in her bearing and temperament, but not in terms of the bloodline, in terms of the law. That which makes her precious to Tyrion is precisely what puts her in danger. That is the truth behind the smiling mask
  • I’m reminded of how often George uses a goldilocks formula to evaluate the political leadership of Westeros.
  • During the conquest, Rhaenys over favored the fun-times, Visenya was too war-like. Aegon was just right.
  • Aenys was too soft, Maegor too cruel and Jaehaerys just right.
  • Renly was too obsessed with image politics, Stannis too obsessed with the substance and Robert had the balance of substance and style (at first).
  • So, too, we focus on the Lannister kids. Joffrey is too cruel, Tommen too tractable and Myrcella just right.
  • She’s the princess who strikes the right balance of strength and love: standing up to Joffrey during Joff’s nameday tourney, giving comfort to Tommen here.
  • Myrcella’s smile is “a shade tremulous,” a lovely term. It’s the first crack in the glass, the flaw in the perfect portrait, the hint that it’s all going to go wrong
  • Myrcella doesn’t know it, but her parentage is the tremulous shade in the house of cards that is Lannister power. She embodies their strength and weakness
  • George then checks in with the strategic side of Tyrion’s mind, which is increasingly obsessed with Stannis since the news of Renly’s death
  • Everything Tyrion sees makes him think of the true Baratheon heir, coming to claim his throne and city from Cersei’s children with fire and blood
  • Tyrion has taken sensible precautions. He sent several strong ships, he dispatched Arys Oakheart (one of the more trustworthy Kingsguard knights) to protect Myrcella, and he has engaged Braavos, a very cunning move
  • This is one example of how the pretense of power is still helping the Lannisters. They are the ones with the ability to make public alliances with Braavos
  • Stannis lacks the signifiers of power: the city, the treasury, the throne. Braavos does not respect his authority yet. So Tyrion gets to use Braavosi power as a shield in order to get Myrcella to Dorne, acquiring more power in turn
  • The Lannisters also have control of the royal treasury: perhaps the chief shadow on a wall. 
  • Their power of the purse means that the Sealord of Braavos and the Iron Bank will negotiate with them and lend them money.
  • This shared economic purpose between the Sealord and the Iron Bank drives this bargain with the Lannisters as much as the vestments of power do.
  • The implication here is that the Lannisters are continuing to pay interest against the loans that Robert took out from the Iron Bank.
  • But as Jon notes in ADWD, once you prove financially untrustworthy to the Iron Bank, bad shit goes down:
    • The Iron Bank of Braavos had a fearsome reputation when collecting debts. Each of the Nine Free Cities had its bank, and some had more than one, fighting over every coin like dogs over a bone, but the Iron Bank was richer and more powerful than all the rest combined. When princes defaulted on their debts to lesser banks, ruined bankers sold their wives and children into slavery and opened their own veins. When princes failed to repay the Iron Bank, new princes sprang up from nowhere and took their thrones.
  • In Braavos, the legitimizing political currency is currency. And when you aren’t earning, it’s Stannis time. 
  • But he’s positively humming with anxiety about elements beyond his control, about Stannis turning up any moment, unable to feel secure in his power
  • Stannis has become a fearsome figure of dread and death in his mind just as he has in Catelyn’s mind, his shadow casting long and dark over Westeros at war
  • I get why, of course; Stannis poses a significant threat! But Tyrion isn’t paying enough attention to the threat of the starving riled-up smallfolk. He’s so fixated on the horizon that he doesn’t feel the ground falling away underneath him
  • That sums up the overall mindset of the people in power right now; with the occasional exception like Edmure, they’re so intent on getting at each other that they’re barely paying attention to everyone they’re grinding under the wheels
  • When Tyrion does take note of the peasants, the laborers, everyone who constitutes the actual majority population of Westeros, it’s only to dismiss them
  • He thinks that he doesn’t care if the people building his winch towers are cursing his name, but then is taken aback when Jacelyn Bywater says they hate him?
  • This is filtered, of course, through his stature and how the world has treated him because of it. As part of this ceremony, this public performance of power, Tyrion must walk in public--or as he thinks of it, waddle. It’s humiliating for him
  • No one laughs...though Tyrion knows they must want to. Doesn’t that so perfectly capture the futility of using power to fix the wounds we’ve taken?
  • Tyrion now has the authority to make everyone shut up when he’s around, but he can’t silence the voice inside that tells him about their voices inside. In that projected space of learned abjection, Tyrion’s power does not help him
  • Part of Tyrion’s arc in ASOIAF is how he’s gradually becoming more like Tywin. He’s fearful of laughter and being laughed at.
  • Considering how Tyrion laughs uproariously when Jon tells him that Ghost maybe thought he was a grumpkin back in AGOT, this is kinda sad!
  • Now he uses laughter and mockery to win short-term advantage in his discussion with Alliser Thorne. He uses laughter as a weapon. 
  • But if he’s the one not dishing out the burns or being at the brunt of laughter, he mistrusts it and sees it as a weapon to be used against him.
  • There’s no “wear it like armor” at work with how Tyrion views his disability.
  • He’s, instead, acting in a very early Jon Snow way in lashing out (even internally) at his bullies.
  • And when he has the opportunity, he compensates for his disadvantage - enjoying how high he looks when sitting the Iron Throne in Tyrion VI and now atop his horse here in this chapter.
  • As we’ve talked about at length, Tyrion has refused to use his disability/underdog status to his advantage -- and he’ll continue to not use this to his advantage until his final moments of power at the Blackwater.
  • And not using their status as underdogs is a defining feature of Tywin’s kids.
  • Cersei goes through a similar process, wherein even as she takes charge in her own right, she is limited not only by what the world thinks of her as a woman, but also by what she thinks of herself as a woman--her internalized misogyny
  • We also see how Tyrion’s power intersects with his disability when he considers why the smallfolk might be pissed off at him. Again, this is a concept he reacts to with shock and anger later on in the chapter, but he’s calmer and aware of it now
  • In his mind, they hate him because they are starving, whereas he is “well fed and ugly.” The slippage there, wherein the smallfolk have one trait and he has two, again perfectly summarizes Tyrion’s worldview with just a few words
  • “They hate me because I am well fed and they are starving” is a simple enough concept to articulate. But Tyrion’s thoughts intervenes with and ugly
  • He has thoroughly internalized their hatred, his internal monologue supplying what their words cannot, and he can’t help but filter their suffering through that
  • They hate me in part because of the power structure I sit atop, that of wealth and politics, but also in part because of the power structure where I sit at the bottom, that of stature, that of the image of masculinity in this particular world
  • Both are true, and that’s what makes the politics of this moment so difficult to untangle. Tyrion is using political power to insulate him from the “big people” who have mocked him; their bigotry is an excuse to ignore their starvation
  • In turn, they mock him because it’s their only tool against him, because they’re so powerless to effect change in any other area of their life
  • This combination produces alienation and resentment that makes a better world impossible; it’s why we have to investigate multiple kinds of power and injustice
  • Tyrion has contextualized the rage of the smallfolk in a way that allows him to dismiss their importance, and his mind’s eye goes right back to the labyrinthine power plays among the nobility, specifically regarding Cersei and the Kettleblacks
  • Cersei can perform power so easily in this scene, all smiles and flirtation, because behind the scenes, she’s got herself a conspiracy cooking
  • I love the detail that Cersei meets with the Kettleblacks while pretending to visit the Sept of Baelor to pray for victory against Stannis and his new red god
  • That sums up how the people in power are maintaining a mask of piety, humility, service, while in truth they are consumed with paranoia about one another and only think of other people as pawns to be used in a game that benefits very few
  • And it’s all for nothing. Cersei thinks she’s found a reliable source of power in the Kettleblacks, but they’re taking Tyrion’s money too. Tyrion thinks this puts him in charge, but he never stops to wonder if the Kettleblacks are conning him too
  • They’re making fierce but hollow booming sounds for Cersei, as he thinks. What if that’s all they’re doing for him? What if they’ve told Cersei everything and have reassured her that they’re only feigning loyalty to Tyrion?
  • Even as Tyrion proves more insightful than other members of his family and class about various subjects, he still has huge blind spots about his own use of power
  • The Kettleblacks end up choosing Cersei over Tyrion in this book, but we learn in ASOS that Littlefinger’s been pulling their strings all along. Or so he thinks!
  • The Kettleblacks will probably prove just as useless (at best) to Littlefinger as they were for the Lannisters. There is no substance, no true steel beneath their shell games. Like Qarth’s stone cows, they are hollow drums all the way down
  • Kettleblack as Lannister storm lords?
  • There’s a perverse strength to this constant slipperiness and betrayal. In a Westeros at war, the shifting tides of power can make loyalty a fool’s bet; it’s the same reason Lord Swann sent his sons off to different sides of the war
  • Every side needs disavowable assets like the Kettleblacks, and so the Kettleblacks can draw paychecks from every side at once
  • But as with the Bloody Mummers, the war eventually catches up with them, and the Kettleblacks find out their sleazy liminal status offers them no protection
  • Their name refers to the saying about the pot calling the kettle black; by working for everyone, they expose hypocrisy and corruption wherever they go
  • Tyrion and Cersei are dragging each other down into the shit like Stannis and Renly did; the triple-cross game with the Kettleblacks just highlights that
  • We see this blind spot at work when Tyrion is all agog at Joffrey’s cruelty toward Sansa; he wonders how blind Cersei can be, whilst blind about the Kettleblacks
  • We all see what we choose to see, fooling ourselves into thinking we’re being objective. All these powerful folks are about to get a lesson in that
  • Again, in a perfect world, the Lannisters - like the Baratheons - would work together as the perfect team.
  • Cersei as the beautiful queen/front of the house. Tyrion as back of the house/power behind the scenes. Jaime as optics of chivalry. Joffrey somehow not around in this imaginary scenario.
  • Instead, they scheme against each other and stab each other in the back.
  • It’s all Tywin’s fault, his inability to be emotionally present in his children’s life, using his children in his political schemes, actively hating one of his kids.
  • All of that toxic parenting has led to toxic relationships between the children. Whether they’re fucking each other, wanting to fuck each other, scheming to murder each other, the imagined scenario where they work together can’t work because of the sins of the parents.
  • And wouldn’t you know it, but the sins of parents extends to yet another generation. 
  • It’s so revealing that Joffrey thinks princes aren’t supposed to cry, when he will conduct himself so poorly in public as a king when this chapter goes on
  • The masses don’t care about Tommen crying, they care about being starved and shat upon and killed by the king’s pet thugs. That’s what brings down legitimacy
  • Sansa Stark, blessed little nerd that she is, pipes up with her receipts from the stories and songs: there were in fact princes who cried
  • Specifically, they cry when their families fall apart: when Naerys wed Aegon IV, when twins turned on one another. You can see the resonances. Jaime wept when Cersei wed Robert, and now Stannis and Renly have turned on each other
  • The image of the perfect glittering manly king gives way to the soft interior of us all, broken things that we are. The princes are crying on the inside
  • But the smallfolk are done crying on the inside where no one can see. This is a chapter about catharsis, and everything is going to come out into the open
• The corpse and the shit
  • The royal procession sets out for the Red Keep, protected by a line of gold cloaks on either side. George takes his time describing each rider in turn
  • This is not only to establish who is present and where they are so as to preserve spatial coherence for the upcoming action scene
  • George is emphasizing the richness of the banners, the jewels Sansa is wearing, the overall beauty and refinement on display, as a contrast to the people of King’s Landing, for whom all of that is kept at a distance
  • Not only that, but their taxes are paying for all that glittering refinery. A few are moved by the sight and call out for Joffrey, but most don’t. They’ve seen through the con. They realize the corrupted nature of beauty I talked about in Dany III
  • And ultimately, as Minnesota Gov. Tom Walz said, the authorities must reckon with how thoroughly they are outnumbered by the people they seek to control
  • Tyrion knows that the undercover cops he’s planted among the potential rioters won’t be enough to stop what’s coming
  • Cersei has to know it too, but she pretends otherwise, playing the role of the happy beautiful queen, the shadow on the wall. It’s about to fall apart
  • It falls apart not with a direct physical blow, but with a final attempt to force the Lannisters to reckon with what they have done to the people over whom they rule
  • A woman forces her way out into the street, holding her dead baby above her head. As abject and heartbreaking a sight of a starved infant is, George tells us that the real horror is the woman’s eyes. That says so much with so little
  • The dead are at least at peace. As with Catelyn bearing witness to Ned’s bones, the real horror is living on with the knowledge of what has been taken from you
  • This woman has to wake up every day and remember that her child starved to death because these rich assholes wouldn’t share the scraps off their plates
  • Mike Brown was beyond pain when his body was left out in the sun for hours by the police who were protecting the killer, one of their own
  • But the people observing his body were not beyond pain; the pain was in their eyes, not his. The pain of living with the knowledge of your own exploitation
  • It is the hideously painful revelation that your life does not matter to the people who have the power to grant you mercy or punishment on a whim
  • The starvation of an infant is about as wretched a commentary on the failure of a society as I can imagine, one that calls to mind Les Miserables and Dostoevsky
  • The uncomfortable question we have to ask is whether this is an organic expression of sorrow from a smallfolk or … mummery.
  • There is real horror in what is occurring here, no doubt! And I have zero doubt that children are among those who have died when the high lords play the game of thrones
  • It’s just the timing of it all, the placement of the woman with the dead child, the tossing of the shit. Let me explain.
  • First, let’s start with where the build-up to the actual eruption:
    • They crossed Fishmonger's Square and rode along Muddy Way before turning onto the narrow, curving Hook to begin their climb up Aegon's High Hill.
  • So, here, we have the king’s party moving uphill through a narrow, curving street. Additionally, the windy aspect of the street ensures that visual contact cannot be maintained throughout the route.
  • What this means is that once the front element crosses the bend in the road, they can’t see what’s happening in the rear and vice versa.
  • So, the party has to stretch out in order to keep moving or bunch up.
  • Both options are bad. 
    • Stretching out negates the tactical advantage of massing together with gold cloaks, knights and kingsguard able to protect all members of the party.
    • Bunching up would funnel the Lannister host, forcing most of the party to stop movement altogether and be caught with a hostile crowd all around them.
  • So, the party stretches out, and I think that’s the option that makes the most sense. They really have to keep moving as Tyrion is aware that the mood of the crowd is growing ugly and suspects Cersei is aware too but putting on a brave show.
  • And now we come to the event of the woman approaching the king. Let’s find out where this occurs:
    • Halfway along the route, a wailing woman forced her way between two watchmen and ran out into the street in front of the king and his companions
  • Recall the placement of the party, or the order of march. Joffrey is in the middle of the column moving forward, and now everyone gets stopped.
  • This is a textbook ambush scenario. The way I was taught how to conduct ambushes was to wait for the enemy to be in the center to strike, cutting off the front and rear of a column to defeat in detail.
  • Now, I don’t imagine that GRRM opened up FM 3-21.8 and studied how ambushes are conducted, but it doesn’t take a soldier to understand the site selection for stopping the column right where it does stop to spring a trap.
  • I’ll pause there. 
  • The question of whether or not this was deliberately staged for ambush purposes is one we will return to next week when we talk about Varys and Tyrek
  • I have my doubts because of how genuinely traumatized the woman seems, although Varys certainly could’ve found a genuinely suffering person to pay
  • But I don’t think it really matters whether this particular woman is a paid agitator or not, because she stands in for the real suffering experienced by thousands
  • “This is staged” is often used as a fig leaf to deny that suffering. We see that over and over again in the current unrest in American cities, and in Israel as well
  • Ah, you see, Hamas is behind a lot of those protestors! Ergo, it’s all astroturf, Israel is a real democracy and not a US-funded apartheid state at all
  • Oftentimes, police and intelligence agencies pay agitators in order to dismiss the concerns of the genuine activists and paint them all with a negative brush
  • We have this idea of the platonic Good Suffering Peasant in our head, and anyone who doesn’t fit that image, their concerns are dismissed
  • As if starving disenfranchised people should be angels! As if these conditions are not precisely the conditions that produce revolutionaries, benign and otherwise
  • That platonic ideal does not exist. It’s such a myth that we have to invent one. MLK’s antiwar and anti-capitalist ideals, along with his belief that white moderates who prefer order to justice are the real obstacle to civil rights, is often left out of his image in favor of just the “I have a dream” speech
  • Or look at Rosa Parks. How often is she described as just an ordinary woman who got fed up one day, instead of an activist taking part in a deliberate strategy?
  • When the rebels are seen by the powerful and by the media as bad, then they are paid agitators. When they later are seen as good, they’re just ordinary folks
  • There is no model of upsetting the status quo that will be seen as legitimate by those benefitting from the status quo. You gotta just ignore those fig leaves
  • Moreover, even if this woman is a paid agitator, that doesn’t force Joffrey to respond as though he does. He proves his own unworthiness as a leader; he demonstrates that the people are right to rise up against him, in any form
  • First, he prepares to outright ride the woman down. Only Sansa Stark, bless her, intervenes to save the woman’s life. Joffrey then tosses coins down; they scatter and roll, and everyone fights over them. Careless charity is not enough.
  • Then Cersei steps in to try and paper this over--putting on a show, as Tyrion says. Leave the poor thing alone, she’s beyond our help
  • And so she is! But that’s only because of the Lannisters’ neglectful leadership. Now the bill has come due; time to pay the piper
  • The woman howls insults at Cersei, framing the twincest as the original sin that has infected everything, rendering King’s Landing an unlivable hellscape
  • Then someone throws shit at Joffrey. Tyrion can’t see who. In retrospect, I can’t help but think of the man who threw a shoe at George W. Bush
  • Again: I don’t think it really matters whether the person who threw it was a starving resident of Flea Bottom being paid by Varys or a starving resident of Flea Bottom who isn’t. This seems a fairly academic distinction to me
  • The point is that they’re starving and that the people in power are happy to let them continue to starve. The point is how Joffrey reacts to it
  • Joffrey once more carelessly tosses money around: a hundred golden dragons to the man who gives up the shit-thrower! I will never lift a finger to help you, but I’ll empty my treasury to punish you. Those are my priorities as your king, and it’s a dynamic we are very familiar with in the modern USA. Defund the Lannisters!
  • Tyrion smells disaster, not because of the mob on its own, but because of how Joffrey is inciting the mob, proving their point for them. As always, Joffrey himself is the sticking point, preventing Tyrion from ever doing justice as he pledged
  • Joffrey orders Sandor to cut through the people on the streets in order to bring him the head of the man who threw the shit. Cut. Through. Dozens. Of people.
  • It’s difficult to imagine a more comprehensive abandonment of governance. These are the possibilities of irresponsible power, per Lord of the Flies
  • Again, even if this was all a psyop by Varys to expose how unworthy a leader Joffrey is...well, it worked! The resulting anger is the most genuine thing there is
  • When I first read this passage, my mind went to the treatment of Freedom Riders and other civil rights protestors in the 1960s. Now my mind goes to how the police have treated those protesting against their violence in the modern day
  • The brutal facts of occupation cannot be waved away by zeroing in on suspect individuals. Every single person in that crowd could be a paid agitator, and it doesn’t change the fact that Joffrey unleashed his cops to break heads
  • They are meat, as far as he’s concerned. Not people. And all at once, Joffrey loses the consent of the governed, and the people rise up against him
  • There is no argument that Joffrey is unfit to rule and demonstrates that with his three responses: wanting to ride the woman down, cursing and offering money to the person who threw shit at him and then ordering Sandor Clegane to cut through the crowd to find the perpetrator of the shit-strike.
  • I’m not arguing that the response of the smallfolk was inorganic or staged. There has been a build-up of injustices and targeted deprivations of the smallfolk perpetrated by the ruling classes of Westeros that have led to the city erupting here. 
  • I’m rather arguing that the spark to cause the uprising at this particular location is a tactically-convenient spot to spark an organic smallfolk uprising.
  • Joffrey reacted in the same manner as he operated throughout the narrative: executing traitors, ordering people to fight to the death and firing crossbow bolts at starving peasants who came to the gates clamoring for bread.
  • As you were saying, we’ll unpack more about Varys and Tyrek next time, but I’ll just note for here that just before the riot starts, Tyrion thinks:
    • Varys himself was of doubtful loyalty. I rely too much on Varys, he reflected. I need my own informers. 
  • And Varys is not present among the royal column and is not easily found later in this chapter when Tyrion sends Podrick after him.
  • Again, fodder for next week!
• King Bread 
  • The rebellion takes the form of a rolling thunder, a storm of noise that engulfs the king’s party, “rage and fear and hatred” given pure form
  • Those emotions simmering under the surface have been brought forth. From suspense to catharsis: a purgification in the public square, the world as stage
  • Everyone gets pelted with insults: Joffrey, Cersei, and Tyrion alike. As I said earlier, the people use Tyrion’s stature against him because it’s their only advantage over him, and he in turn uses that to dismiss their desperation
  • Mixed in with the abuse, as Tyrion puts it, are more affirmative cries for a change in leadership, but there is no unity as to who should replace Joffrey
  • Some folks call for Stannis, the only remaining claimant for the Iron Throne. But others call for Robb, despite the fact that he’s not claiming the Throne at all
  • Others even call for Renly despite his death! This shows the difficulty of organizing public anger in a specific concrete direction
  • Once more, that the smallfolk are legitimate in their anger, that they are right about a change in leadership being desperately needed, does not automatically organize them on its own. Opening the floodgates is necessary, but not sufficient
  • George uses the pressure cooker of the riot to expose the thorny knotted nature of political change. The status quo is unacceptable. But what will replace it?
  • The proletariat has the power to completely reshape the world, but the existing hierarchies of power and cultural thought resist change even when their corruption is nakedly exposed. Imagination and organization are required
  • The one thing everyone in this mob has in common, the one organizing principle that brought them all here, is that they are starving. Nothing inspires a rebellion like empty stomachs, and so the one king they believe in is bread
  • This is George doing some material analysis here, demonstrating that all the shadows on walls dominating ACOK fall apart in the ravenous face of hunger
  • Now the mob speaks with one voice. We the people are dying, and we the people are not going to take it any more. We want justice, we want bread!
  • None of these kings matter to us, because as the Brotherhood argues, they are all preying on us, depriving us of the sustenance we need to survive
  • They want to be left alone by the game of thrones, but the game of thrones defines the context in which they live, and right now, it’s killing them
  • They know it, and so they rise up not against the Lannisters, but against starvation. They rise against exploitation. They rise for freedom from want
  • This terrifies Tyrion more than the contradictory cries for one alternate faction or another. King Bread is a more potent challenge than King Robb or King Stannis
  • The riot reframes the riddle that Varys posed Tyrion back in Tyrion’s first ACOK chapter
    • "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me—who lives and who dies?"
  • Here in this chapter, we have a king, a high septon and plenty of rich assholes.
  • And the “little men” (smallfolk?) of common birth and no great mind have decided that they can kill all of them.
  • As you’ve been saying so well, their grievance and their turn to violence is justified.
  • It’s not as though the Lannisters have been trying their best to feed the population and have been the victim of circumstance and bad luck.
  • George goes out of his way to describe the lavish food that Tyrion eats within the walls of the Red Keep -- another example of how food porn can be an effective way of communicating class distinction and how the wealth of the Lannisters immunizes them from the deprivations of starvation that’s affecting hundreds of thousands of King’s Landers.
  • But it’s not just the royal family who’s eating well. Back in Tyrion IV, Tyrion notes:
    • Only a thin trickle of food was coming into King's Landing, most of it earmarked for castle and garrison. Prices had risen sickeningly high on greens, roots, flour, and fruit, and Tyrion did not want to think about what sorts of flesh might be going into the kettles of the pot-shops down in Flea Bottom.
  • These gold cloaks, red cloaks, knights, kingsguard knights: the ones who are holding the line for Joffrey are all fed at the expense of the population that starves around them.
  • Now, in Tyrion’s mind, his sole interest is in holding King’s Landing against Stannis. So, of course, he has to prioritize those who would man the gates, walls and ships that defend the capital.
  • And we should never forget that the city is being starved in small part, because the Riverlands are a battlefield and unable to ship food down to the city.
  • In larger part, Renly and the Tyrell’s strategy is to block food shipments to the city as part of a deliberate strategy to weaken the Lannisters politically and militarily.
  • But as we’ve pointed out in our analyses of Tyrion’s ACOK chapters, Tyrion is propping up a lawless regime who continues to perpetrate further lawlessness and atrocity on the smallfolk.
  • So, the smallfolk of King’s Landing say “fuck this shit, and fuck you for causing this shit.”
  • And so, seeing the mob united as one stomach speaking with one voice, Tyrion decides it’s time to cut and run. At this point, the scene explodes into chaos
  • Fragments of images fly by as though being captured in the shaky cam of a documentarian on the scene; we’re very familiar with such images these days
  • Rocks and vegetables are flying at the king’s party. Hands flash out from the crowd only to explode into blood and screams as the swords flash down
  • Gold cloaks go down under the sheer weight of humanity. Sandor is suddenly gone, his horse running riderless. Aron Santagar is pulled from his horse
  • Amidst the cacophony, one image stands out as representative. Balon Swann drops the Lannister banner in order to defend himself; the banner is promptly ripped to shreds, ragged crimson leaves in a stormwind as George puts it
  • That’s what’s happening in this scene. We the people have stepped outside Plato’s cave and seen Lannister power as but a shadow on a wall
  • The banner does not indicate the glory of god bestowed upon the rightful rulers of Westeros. It’s just fabric--again, George is going full materialist on us here
  • We have looked behind the curtain and seen that the great and powerful Oz is just a man, and so can be overthrown. This is what the failure of power looks like
  • So when the image of power fails, when the fig leaf of righteousness and consent gives way to fire and blood, the only way power has of sustaining itself is force
  • Joffrey rides right over someone, and Tyrion couldn’t say whether it was man, woman, or child. They’re dehumanized in his eyes, just a blur of rage and hunger
  • And then suddenly they’re inside, the walls rising up reassuringly, crossbowmen guarding their retreat, the noise giving way, the people kept outside
  • But all this power seems more fragile now. There’s no going back inside the cave, back into the Matrix. A challenge has been made. How to answer it?
  • You’ll be as surprised as me to find out that the Lannisters don’t take the lessons of this near-death experience beyond “Wow, the poors are awful angry. Why is that?”
  • Tyrion, being Tyrion, will recognize how unpopular his family is. He knows it already as he discusses in conversation with Ser Jacelyn Bywater in the latter part of this chapter.
  • But there’ll be no meaningful reform introduced, no equitable distribution of food coming into King’s Landing. 
  • And this is a big-ass problem for the Lannisters, because when help finally does arrive at the Blackwater, it’s in the form of the Tyrells shipping food by wagon-load into the city after, of course, they starved the city.
  • The Tyrells quickly win the love of the commons as Tyrion notes in ASOS and Cersei grows paranoid about in AFFC.
  • So, the Lannisters learn nothing, and though the Lannisters still hold King’s Landing by the end of ADWD and there’s been no further riot in King’s Landing, the smallfolk despise the Lannisters and will shrug them off for the next best thing.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Tyrion continues to prepare for the Battle of Blackwater just outside the reader’s awareness, building winch towers to lower and raise his chain.

Tyrion is more right than he knows when he says that the Tyrells would rather have Joffrey dead than let him harm Margaery.

Theory/Discussion

What would justice for the Lannisters from the people look like? Are we talking Gaemon Palehair 2.0? If so, how to protect it? If not, what would the model of justice look like?

Conclusion

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  • Ryan Noye forger of the mighty hammer and keeper of the kings anvil
• Join us next week for Part 2 of this chapter, ACOK Tyrion IX, in which Tyrion slaps Joffrey, Sandor saves Sansa, and the Lannisters just barely hold a city that hates them.