Tywin Lannister: Machiavellian Prince

by James Doone

James Doone portrays Tywin Lannister as the true statesman of Westeros: a Machiavellian realist who, unlike the noble but doomed Ned Stark, understands that power, not virtue, secures rule.

“Lannisters don’t act like fools.” Thus were the words spoken by the Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West and Hand of the King.

I remember watching Game of Thrones years ago (there are only seven seasons!) and as much as I admired, and still do, the honourable character Ned Stark, the pillar of justice, oathkeeping and true speech, I couldn’t help but begin to think, what good is honour if you lose? Soon another character came onto the screen, a man with a strong sense of his possession of authority, power, command and used to being obeyed, but also a man who is cunning, smart, money bet on the winning side, a Machiavellian prince but not a cruel man, and that man is none other than Tywin Lannister, the Bismarck of Westeros. If there is any man who political realists can admire and look to as a statesman, a ruler, a theorist in the true art of power, then it is this great lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He has no time for idealism when it doesn’t help and certainly not when it conflicts with the cold reality of life and the situation before him. As Alexander the Great kept a copy of the Iliad of Homer under his pillow during his campaign to conquer the Persian empire of Darius, so too I imagine that Tywin keeps a copy of Machiavelli’s il principe under his pillow.

We political realists can see a fellow student of the Italian School of Elite Theory (ISET) in a man such as Tywin Lannister. I bet he has read Mosca’s On the Ruling Class (Elementi di Scienza Politica) for he has truly distilled the lessons of power in his rule of the nation. Unlike cruel sadistic persons like Joffrey, or brutish dogs like Gregor Clegane, or stupid ferrets like Amory Lorch, Tywin is not a cruel man. He has no like of brutality, but he is at the same time not a man who will shy away from sheer utter brute force when required (the Red Wedding). Hypothetically, if a band of rebellious peasants marched on the capital of his fiefdom, someone like Ned Stark would go down in person to speak with them and listen to their concerns, which is the honourable and just thing to do, which I certainly admire and want all lords to do, but a man like Tywin would, if he was in a merciful mood, order them to disperse and consider themselves lucky (the ringleaders would probably be hanged as an example to the rest) but if they didn’t, then he’d, like Napoleon, give them a whiff of grapeshot; in the medieval case, a hail of arrows.