House Tyrell Is Just House Lannister But Less Insane

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Have you ever wondered what the Lannisters would be like if they weren't all completely insane? Well, take a look at House Tyrell and I think you'll find your answer. There are actually so many similarities that I feel like this is definitely intentional by George. And he's giving us a glimpse into what the Lannisters could be like if they were just a little bit more well adjusted and could be normal for 5 minutes. The similarities and also some of the differences between the characters in these two houses put them at odds in a very interesting way. As of the end of a dance with dragons, the union of Marjgery and Tommen rules the Iron Throne. And these two basically have as powerful of an alliance as you could ask for in Westeros. The Lannisters being the source of most of the realm's gold and the Tyrells being the source of most of the realm's food. The main problem standing in the way of this powerful alliance completely controlling Westeros seems to be mostly Cersei Lannister. Her paranoia is driving a wedge between these two families and it's likely to cause the collapse of this whole alliance by the end. So that's the context which has brought these two families together and put these similarities that we're going to be looking at today on full display. One of the most obvious comparisons is definitely between Marjgery and Cersei.

[00:01:18]Cersei believes that Marjorie may be the younger and more beautiful queen who was foretold in the Maggie the Frog prophecy who will take everything that Cersei holds dear. Rather than a potential ally, Cersei essentially sees Marjgery as someone who is competing for Tommen's affection and the power that they can wield through Tommen. Cersei, when she was younger, wanted to marry Rhaegar and become the queen. But Rhaegar's family was defeated in a rebellion with the final blows coming from her family members as Jaime slew the mad king and Tywin sacked King's Landing. Then she ended up marrying Robert and becoming the queen anyway. Marjgerie married Renley Baratheon, trying to become the queen, but he was defeated during a rebellion. In this case, he was the rebel. But either way, he was defeated.

[00:02:07]And so instead, she married Joffrey to become the queen. But then Joffrey was killed by her family. So she ended up marrying Tommen. Both of them really wanted to be queen and also had powerful fathers who dreamed of seeing their grandson sitting on the iron throne. So both of them ended up becoming the queen. They also, of course, end up both taken by the faith militant and put on trial. Not only are they directly put head-to-head, but they're put in parallel situations. They're both queens. They're both two of the most beautiful women in Westeros. I don't think I have to work too hard to sell you on this comparison. The main difference, of course, being that compared to Marjorie, Cersei is far more insane and self-destructive.

[00:02:49]They also both have a brother who was one of the youngest King's Guard Knights ever. Jaime being the youngest King's Guard knight when he was first appointed to the King's Guard at just 15 years old. Both of these brothers joined the King's Guard to be closer to their sisters in King's Landing, but the Tyrells did it for normal functional reasons, whereas Jaime and Cersei did it for completely dysfunctional reasons.

[00:03:14]Loris joined the King's Guard because his father wanted him to. He would be there to protect his sister while she was at King's Landing, and it was part of the agreement when she agreed to marry Joffrey. Jaime, on the other hand, was sleeping with his sister, Cersei, and she was taken to King's Landing by Tywin, who was the hand of the king, separating Cersei from Jaime for a few years, which really made him angry. And so, they plotted that they could be together again if he was named to the king's guard. Cersei seems to have planted the idea in the mad king's head which he went with and a little while later Jaime was told that he was being named to the king's guard at the turn at Harrenhal. This however enraged Tywin Lannister and he resigned as hand of the king and took Cersei back to Casterly Rock. So Jaime left Casterly Rock for King's Landing at the same time Cersei left King's Landing for Casterly Rock.

[00:04:09]So this whole plan backfired and blew up in their face. But you can definitely see what I mean by the dysfunctional and functional family relationships going on here. Jaime Lannister joined the King's Guard without his father's permission and angered his father in doing so in order to continue sleeping with his sister. Whereas Loris joined the King's Guard fully with his father's approval because he wanted to join the King's Guard and his father wanted him to in order to protect his sister at King's Landing. It's also worth noting that both of these brothers had a secret relationship that they couldn't let be widely known by the public. Loris Tyrell was obviously in love with Renley Baratheon and they were sleeping together and Marjorie was fully aware of this and she was the cover for that because it made it politically convenient and she got what she wanted out of the situation by potentially becoming the queen. This is maybe not the most normal family dynamic, but they're all at least working together, and it's a lot more healthy of a secret relationship dynamic than what's going on with Jaime and Cersei, who are twins who are sleeping together and keeping it secret from everyone. And it is also worth noting that originally at the very beginning of the story, Renley was plotting to try and get Robert to set Cersei aside for Marjorie. The implication being that the initial plan was for Robert to marry Marjgerie so that Loris could come to King's Landing with his sister and then Renley and Loris would be free to have their relationship going on without him having to pretend to be married to Marjgery. So Marjorie marrying him was basically a backup plan, but this whole time they were plotting to make Marjorie queen so that Loris could come to King's Landing and sleep with his secret lover. The parallels go beyond just being young members of the King's Guard and having secret lovers in King's Landing, though.

[00:05:59]Jaime and Loris are also both among the most skilled warriors in all of Westeros, especially for their age when they were teenagers. This made them both fairly full of themselves, which is something that Jaime reflects on during this conversation that the two of them have. And then he was alone with the Knight of Flowers. Slim as a sword, light and fit, Sir Loris Tyrell wore a snowy linen tunic and white wool breaches with a gold belt around his waist and a gold rose clasping his fine silk cloak. His hair was a soft brown tumble and his eyes were brown as well and bright with insolence. He thinks this is attorney and his tilt has just been called. 17 and a night of the king's guard, said Jaime. You must be proud. Prince Aean the Dragon Knight was 17 when he was named. Did you know that?

[00:06:50]Yes, my lord. And did you know that I was 15? That as well, my lord, he smiled. Jaime hated that smile. I was better than you, Sir Loris. I was bigger. I was stronger. And I was quicker. And now you're older, the boy said. My lord. He had to laugh. This is too absurd. Tyrion would mock me unmercifully if he could hear me now comparing Cox with this green boy. Older and wiser sir, you should learn from me.

[00:07:22]As you learned from Sir Boros and Sir Marin. That arrow hit too close to the mark. I learned from the White Bull embarrassed in the bold. Jaime snapped.

[00:07:33]I learned from Sir Arthur Dayne, the sword of the morning, who could have slain all five of you with his left hand while he was taking a piss with the right. I learned from Prince Luen of Dorne and Sir Oswell went and Sir Jonath.

[00:07:47]Good men, everyone.

[00:07:50]Dead men, everyone.

[00:07:52]He's me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself as I was all cockure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you to be too good, too young.

[00:08:05]This little exchange sums it up as well as you could. Loris Tyrell at this point is the younger version of Jaime Lannister, and Jaime can see that the second he gets a one-on-one conversation with him as members of the King's Guard.

[00:08:18]So, we have Cersei and Marjorie who are on the same path, becoming the queen of Westeros. Cersei being paranoid because of prophecy and cynical and angry at this point because of 15 years of being married to Robert Baratheon and also losing one of her children recently. And then you have Marjorie who seemingly is just trying her best to be normal and be a decent queen. Then you have their brothers who became some of the youngest members of the King's Guard ever. Loris to protect his sister Marjgery at King's Landing. And Jaime so that he could secretly sleep with his sister at King's Landing. Jaime has been humbled by the world at this point with the loss of his sword hand. But Loris is still as cocky and arrogant as Jaime was when he was that age. But Loris may have also just been burned on Dragon Stone, so his humbling may be revealed to us in the next book. I recently did a whole video about that on the channel, whether I think Loris is actually injured on Dragon Stone or not. So, if you're curious to dive into all of that, you can check that out after this video.

[00:09:19]When you compare how similar these characters are though, it does make a lot of sense to me that in the same way Jaime lost his sword hand and was humbled by that experience, it would make sense for George to take away Loris's good looks and have him horribly scarred on Dragonstone and humble him in a similar way. The similarities though go even further when you take a look at who should be the heir to High Garden compared to who should be the heir to Casterly Rock. And I say should be the heir because by all rights Tyrion should be the heir of Casterly Rock. But Tywin is having none of that. The heir to High Garden is Willis Tyrell who is described as intelligent, studious, educated, and kind. Much like Tyrion Lannister at the beginning of the story. Tyrion may not be the most kind of all people, but he does try to make a saddle for Bran in the beginning, and he gets along with Jon Snow, so I'm going to give it to him. before he was put into a position of power and forced to play the game of thrones. I think he was a kinder person than he is now. In any case, he's definitely studious and well educated.

[00:10:21]And he talks in the first book about how his mind needs books like a sword needs a wet stone, and that's the way that he can be useful to his family. Tyrion obviously can't be useful in the traditional nightly way because he is a dwarf. and Willis can't be useful in the traditional nightly way because he's crippled from a bad childhood jousting accident with Ober and Martell. However, by comparison, where Tywin seems to treat Tyrion as an embarrassment to be pushed aside and ignored for the most part, Willis Tyrell seems to be treated perfectly fine by his family. They seem to all love him in a way that only Jaime seems to love Tyrion. In other words, the Tyrells have the normal, welladjusted, and functional family reaction to their brother and son who has this injury. Whereas the Lannisters, other than Jaime, treat Tyrion like a useless little monster. Had the Lannisters treated Tyrion in the same way that the Tyrells treat Willis, basically they could be talked about in the exact same way. The kind, studious, smart heir to this great house. Tyrion would probably have some marriage prospects in the same way that Willis does despite his injury. Which brings us to another similarity between these two characters. When the Tyrells were planning to get Sansa away from King's Landing and take her to High Garden, the plan was to betrotheis Tyrell, a plan which was stopped by Tywin when he forced Tyrion and Sansa to marry. So yeah, the similarities are all right there all the way down to the fact that their families were competing to have them marry Sansa Stark. Speaking of these plans, it's also worth looking up a generation at the fathers of these two houses. In the television show, they basically made Oena Tyrell the counterpart to Tywin and had them go back and forth, which was a good choice.

[00:12:10]I think that worked out well for the show. But when I look at it in the books, I'm not so sure that Mace Tyrell and Tywin are actually all that different. Except for fitting with the theme of the video, one of them seems to be a normal, functional, welladjusted person and father, and the other one is Tywin, who is completely insane. I feel like a good place to start with this comparison is at the roots and what made these two men into who they are today. I just did a whole video breaking down Tywin's mommy issues and daddy issues, which will have come out on the channel a couple days before this one and is basically sort of paired with this video because that whole topic would have taken up like half this video if I wanted to get into details. The short version of it though is that Tywin's mother had a huge rivalry with this other woman named Ellen Rain, and she ended up marrying into the Tarbex. And Tywin's mother obviously married Tywinwin's father, Tidos, who Tywin and many others viewed as a bit of an oath.

[00:13:06]He was easy to take advantage of, wanted to please everybody, and people did take advantage of him to the detriment of House Lannister. A couple of the houses who were taking advantage of Tywin's father were the Reigns and the Tarbecks.

[00:13:19]Tywin also lost his mother when he was about 13 years old, which definitely seems to have had an effect on him. When he came of age, he essentially on his own, without his father's permission, started a war with House Rain and House Tarbeck, took a bunch of Lannister soldiers and completely wiped out both of the houses, inspiring the song, The Reigns of Castmir, because there are no more reigns in Castmir anymore after Tywin was done with them. So, Tywin lost his mother and a few years later, he had completely extincted both of the houses that were associated with his mother's biggest rival. The only parent he was left with was his father, who he felt was a bit of an oath and easily taken advantage of. All of this combined to teach Tywin the lesson that you need to be ruthless and brutal to anyone who opposes you. You know who else had a bit of an oath for a father? Mace Tyrell.

[00:14:13]Except for rather than his mother dying when he was young, it was his father who rode off the edge of a mountain while he was hawking and that's how he died. sort of proving that yeah, he was probably a little bit of an oath, which is something that we hear directly from Oena Tyrell. But I find this another sort of interesting similarity and point of comparison. We don't know how Mace would have turned out if his mother had died rather than his oath of a father.

[00:14:37]And we don't know how Tywin would have turned out if his mother had survived into old age like Elena Tyrell and his father had died as a young oath. Perhaps Tywin's mother would have dealt with the reigns and Tarbecks in her own way before Tywin even came of age, and he wouldn't have learned this young formative lesson of being brutal to your enemies. Perhaps he wouldn't have grown up with the insecurity of watching his father, at least in his own mind, embarrass potentially even destroy House Lannister. He may not have had the same hatred for Tyrion's public sleeping around the way that he does if his father hadn't taken public mistresses and even allowed them to wear his mother's jewelry, essentially publicly insulting his mother's memory. In a best-c case scenario, this could mean that there's no freak out over the whole Tisha situation when Tyrion was young.

[00:15:26]But at the very least, he may just look the other way when Tyrion is sleeping with Sheay during the events of the book and then Tyrion wouldn't have to hide her away in King's Landing. and a lot of drama could have been avoided. So much of Tywin's character seems to come from the fact that his mother died when he was young and his oath of a father survived, whereas Ma Tyrell is exactly the opposite. And I feel like that's really interesting and probably intentional. We don't know enough about Tywin's mother to say whether she was very similar to Elena Tyrell or not, but their fathers definitely seemed similar.

[00:15:58]And I wonder how Mace would have turned out had Oena died and he had to grow up watching his father be an oath and embarrass House Tyrell. Perhaps he would have ended up spending his teenage years putting down vassal rebellions and he would have learned to be ruthless and been a bit more traumatized and a little bit less well adjusted. This then could have been passed on to his kids and maybe made them a little bit less stable as well. Another thing that definitely works against the general stability of the Lannister family is the death of Joanna Lannister, which happened after she gave birth to Tyrion. This is something that's obviously going to have a big effect on Cersei and Jaime, and it definitely had a big effect on Tywin, who really loved his wife by all accounts. Part of his hatred towards Tyrion certainly comes from him being a dwarf, but I think a good chunk of it comes from the fact that Joanna died giving birth to Tyrion and then Tyrion turned out to be a dwarf. The trauma of losing Joanna and Tywin having to be a single parent and the sort of divide it created between Tyrion and the rest of the family definitely did a number on all of the Lannisters.

[00:17:06]Meanwhile, Mace Tyrell's wife, Allerie High Totower, is still alive and taking an active role in the raising of her children. Now, to be very clear, I'm not taking a shot at single parents, especially ones who lost the other parent in such a tragic way, but I am saying it definitely had an effect on Tywin Lannister, and he's not the greatest single dad. Had his wife been around, you have to wonder how differently his children would have turned out. Again, on this specific issue, I'm definitely not placing any blame on Tywin or the Lannisters in any way, but it is definitely a point of differentiation between them and the Tyrells that really makes you wonder how different could House Lannister be had Tywin's wife or Tywin's mother survived.

[00:17:49]Would they perhaps have been a lot more like the Tyrells and a bit less self-destructive?

[00:17:54]I also definitely think it's worth asking, what would have happened with the whole Tisha situation had Joanna Lannister lived? Would she have helped Tyrion with girls and found a better match for him before the whole Taisha situation happened in the first place?

[00:18:08]If it did happen, would she have ever allowed Tywin to do what he did to Taiisha and Tyrion to her son? Would she have protected him? Would they have been able to stay married? Would they have been broken up in a far less traumatic way? The questions are really fascinating, and the butterfly effect of this whole situation could have changed the entire life of all of the Lannister children. Heck, it could have directly saved the life of Tywin because obviously Tyrion freaks out over the whole Tisha reveal and goes and kills Tywin. So again, this is one of the biggest whatifs that I could possibly imagine if Joanna Lannister had survived. If you were going to change the entire future of House Lannister, I think changing the Tisha incident is one of the biggest ways that you could do that. And I think that Joanna being alive would have absolutely changed the Tisha incident. So yeah, when you're comparing the sanity of Tywin and his children to Mace Tyrell and his children, the fate of the women of the family seems to have had a really big effect. Another thing that's worth bringing up when you're comparing Ma Tyrell to Tywin Lannister is the fact that Tywin Lannister seems to be widely respected or at the very least feared, whereas Mace Tyrell is seen by many, at least in the fandom, as a bit of an oath. The thing that I would like to point out though is I'm not entirely sure that these reputations are all that well-earned. Essentially, Tywin seems like he's feared because of how ruthless he was with the reigns in the Tarbex, but when you actually compare their record, they both seem to be roughly equally competent. Mace Tyrell at the very least seems to be a wellrespected battle commander with his biggest victory coming at the Battle of Asheford where during Robert's rebellion he actually defeated Robert Baratheon's army. Now much of the fighting had already been done and won by Randall Tarly Sam's dad. So, Mace maybe won't get full credit for this victory. But still, it is fairly impressive to have taken part in a battle where you defeat Robert Baratheon, and Randall is a vassel of Mace Tyrell. So, if we're giving credit to Tywin for what his vassels and their soldiers do, I feel like it's fair to give Mace some credit here. On the other hand, Tywin seems to have his most impressive and well-known victory coming in a rebellion which he started against two of his father's vassals where they outnumbered their army. And not only that, but they marched on them and took them before they were able to even call their banners. So before the army even all got together, Tywin had marched down and smashed them. Now, I can't throw too much shade at this move because it is a good move to do because you're trying to win the war at all costs. And when I've been playing Crusader Kings, I have definitely marched my entire army into the capital of one of my vassals before I try to imprison him for treason. In case it doesn't work and he decides to rebel, then it's an easy victory. That's basically what Tywin did here, and it is a good move. But militarily, it's not that impressive. Another of Tywin's most notable military accomplishments is the sack of King's Landing, where he waited out the rebellion until he saw who was going to win, and then he joined the winning side. very brutally at the end, which makes him basically Walder Frey with a better PR team and a lot more gold. And let's remember, he was let into King's Landing. They straight up opened the gates for him, so he didn't have to take the city. He just brutally sacked a city that welcomed him with open gates. Then when it came time for the War of the Five Kings, he lost every battle he fought against Rob Stark. If not for a series of events that were completely out of his control, the Lannisters would have gotten absolutely wrecked in this war. Had Stannis not shadowbabied Renley, had Balen Greyjoy attacked the Lannisters rather than trying to take revenge on the North, and had Rob Stark not broken his betroal with Walder Frey, all of this stuff could have been very different, and the Lannisters would have probably been completely screwed. Now, if you want to assign maximum competence to Tywin, you could say that, okay, Rob fell for one of his bannermen. And there are people who believe with decent reason that maybe Jane Westerling was sent to seduce Rob Stark or even give him a love potion, potentially as a part of a plan from Tywin in order to create the circumstances for the Red Wedding. Or I suppose to be more accurate, I should say that Jane Westerling's mother may have tried to get Rob Stark seduced and slip him a love potion because Jane definitely seems to not be in on it. But as I said, if you want to give maximum credit to Tywin Lannister, you could say that maybe there was actually some plan that he was putting in place that caused Rob Stark to break the betroal with the phrase and then maybe that's what allowed the Red Wedding to take place.

[00:22:52]If you want to give Tywin full credit, maybe that happened, but we don't really have too much evidence of that. It seems at least as likely that it was all just a big mistake by Rob Stark, which to his credit, Tywin did take advantage of. So, Tywin lost every battle, but did win the war via the Red Wedding, which I guess you can give him some credit for. But as you can see, he's getting more credit for just being completely ruthless and doing things that seem insane rather than being super competent on the battlefield. Like, sure, Tywin has built up the reputation that you don't really want to go to war with Tywin Lannister, but imagine you had a chess player who would just get up in the middle of games of chess and randomly punch his opponent in the face and break their jaw. Well, after a few times of doing this, he would have a reputation as someone you don't want to play chess against, but not necessarily because he's amazing or unbeatable at chess, just because he's completely insane. This is Tywin Lannister's reputation when it comes to war. Realistically thinking about it, the most impressive thing that he's probably done is winning the Battle of the Blackwater, where he arrived just in time to defeat Stannis and keep King's Landing from falling. This though is just a matter of showing up with a massive army at the right time when someone's trying to take a city and much of their forces have already been destroyed and they're all tired from fighting and then he just shows up and wipes out those who are left. The bit about having Garland Tyrell wear Renley's armor so it looks like Renley's ghost is there and that causes a bunch of people who had been previously sworn to Renley to break and run. That is impressive and sneaky, but that was actually Littlefinger's idea, not Tywins. I've also had some people bring that up in the comments of my recent video about Loris Tyrell and whether he's pulling some trick pretending to be injured on Dragonstone. And some people have said, well, he wore Renley's armor during the battle. So, he does pull tricks and things like that. But actually, in the books, that was his brother wearing the armor. And Loris himself confirms that it was all Littlefinger's idea. So, not Loris's and not Tywin's. Now, I'm not trying to say Tywin Lannister is completely incompetent by any means, but I am saying that he and Mace Tyrell actually probably are on much more of a similar level than most fans give them credit for. Another thing that we have to keep in mind when comparing Tywin to Mace or any other lord in all of the Seven Kingdoms is the fact that Tywin is living on mountains of gold. Far more gold than any other lord and far more gold than anyone can reasonably know what to do with. If you were trying to make the best case for Tywin being really competent, you may point to his time as hand of the king, which he was the youngest person ever to serve as hand of the king, and he got the crown out of debt, and the realm prospered for at least a good while under his rule.

[00:25:40]The thing is, though, he didn't get the crown out of debt by being incredibly smart business-wise or economically or anything like that. He just paid it off with Lannister gold because, again, he's living on a mountain of gold. He was also given the job in the first place because Aerys was impressed by how ruthless he was with the reigns and the Tarbachs. So again, more ruthlessness than competence. He also gained a good reputation amongst many of the lords of the realm by repealing a bunch of reforms that had recently been put into place that gave the peasants more rights and things like that. So basically, he was ruthless towards the rights of the small folk and that's what seems to have made most of the lords like him. So again, when you actually take a look at his record, he seems to just be incredibly rich and incredibly ruthless, more so than he is like some sort of super genius. I don't know if Mace Tyrell is as competent or as smart as Tywin Lannister, but I would imagine that if he was living on a mountain of gold the way that Tywin is, he could have at the very least paid off the crown's debt and made the realm prosper had he been hand of the king instead of Tywin. We can never really know because these two are given very different lives and very different challenges to overcome. But in the one situation where we can directly compare them, which is the raising of their children, Mace Tyrell knocks it out of the park compared to Tywin. And I do think that is a really interesting comparison. The comparison between the Tyrell family and the Lannisters just across the board to me is really fascinating. Basically, as far as I see it, the Lannisters are the Tyrells, but 15 years older and way more insane. Let me know what you guys think of this comparison between these two families down there in the comments. And if there's anything else that you feel like adds to this discussion that I didn't bring up, definitely mention it down there. Also, make sure you like and subscribe before you go and maybe check out something else on my channel. Also, huge thank you to my channel members.

[00:27:34]You are all awesome.