Tyrion IX

Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister in HBOs Game of Thrones

Tyrion is riding Penny's pig, wearing the grotesque painted wooden armor of her dead brother. He feels utterly absurd. They are tilting on the deck of their ship, trying to lift the mood of the sailors. The ship is captured in a calm for days now, and the mood of the sailors has worsened beyond a doubt. After the show, which required him to be knocked out of the saddle, he has a short exchange with Ser Jorah, who mocks him for it, and then talks to Penny who tells him that they were good and that they will get better. Before they can talk more, the captain commands the crew in the boats to row the ship farther north in hope of finding a breeze.

After the clamor has calmed down, Tyrion finds himself opposite to Jorah again. Jorah asks him mockingly if he hopes to get a pardon of Daenerys by performing for her, and Tyrion answers that indeed he does, stating that his chances are much better than Jorah's who ran away because he was spying on her. Jorah, not amused, hits him so hard over the face that he breaks a tooth. He then tells Tyrion that he doesn't want to see him again until they reach Meereen and that he has to sleep elsewhere. Tyrion subsequently goes into Penny's cabin, where he warns Penny to stay away from love, since it is truly dangerous, and cling to her maidenhead. He also mutters that there is nothing more dangerous than the generosity of kings.

Calls of sailors bring them to the deck again, where the wind is blowing in the sails. Everyone cheers, until on the next day, they discover a big storm front on the horizon drawing near. Moqorro states that he and Benerro so it in their visions, and that the storm is the reason that the ship won't reach Qarth. Penny is dead frightened, and Tyrion takes her below decks. When the storm starts to rage, Penny suggests to play a game, and Tyrion proposes "Come into my castle", soon realizing that it's a game for highborn children and that Penny doesn't know it. Penny then rushes forward and kisses him, but Tyrion is repulsed by that and only lets her finish the kiss not to disappoint her. He then gently tells her that he is married and can't kiss her because of that.

The storm rages on for hours, before it suddenly calmes. Tyrion goes on the deck, realizing that they are in the eye of the storm. Moqorro stands on the deck, holding up his staff, chanting, and a flash of green fire rushes from the staff into the air just when the storm rages on. The main mast breaks and splinters, and Tyrion is hit several times, one including a splinter piercing through his calf. Moqorro and others are swept overboard. When the storm finally calms down, the ship is half destroyed, and for 19 days, the crew can't do much besides keeping it afload. When a sail turns up on the horizon, everyone is full of hope again until Jorah realizes it's a slaver.

The chapter is pretty short, continuing the line of short chapters begun with Jon's last prior, and mainly gives another step of Tyrion's recollection of his own self as well as the ongoing journey. The tourney in the beginning is like a reversal of Joffrey's wedding: Tyrion swallows his own pride for the better of all, performing a stupid jape to lighten the mood of the sailors who, superstitious, begin to hold the dwarves responsible for their calamities. However, Tyrion still has not much self-esteem, defining himself by the opinions of other, and worst of all, dead people. Especially his father clouds his mind more often than not, and Tyrion needs to shake his presence off if he wants to become someone of his own again.

He expresses a very disappointed and brutish look on love in this chapter. It only hurts, he says, and all women are false (with exception of Tysha). It's the song all men sing when they are disappointed by love, of course, but the reasons why Tyrion says it are darker. The only true love he knew was taken by his father and bis brother, and everything he tried ever since has turned to ash, most notably in the persons of Shae, who betrayed him, and Sansa, who despised him. Tyrion feels that he is incapable for love, and in a sense, this is true. Tyrion can't love anyone until he learns to love himself again.

This does not hinder him to care for other people, fortunately. It has always been one of his greatest character traits that he cared, and his sentiment of caring for cripples, bastards and broken things comes true once again in Penny, for whom he does not feel any desire, but for who he feels responsible nonetheless. Penny is a child, if not in body, then in mind, and the dangers and cruelty of the world comes to her unfiltered and affects her deeply. Her big naivity is protected by Tyrion, who tries to shelter her from the woes of the world.

As to a side-note, Tyrion still needs to learn to shut his mouth if he has come up with something too clever. When he mocks Jorah and hits home, strucking a nerve with his doubts over his scheme and the disposition of Daenerys towards him, Jorah brutally hits him. If Tyrion wasn't an integral part of his plan, he certainly would have killed him. If Tyrion doesn't learn it - and he will - then sometime someone will actually kill him for it, someone who isn't bound by his best interest, morality of family ties.