‘Game of Thrones’: Is It All Tyrion’s Fault?

What happened to King’s Landing in Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5 “The Bells” was nothing short of apocalyptic. Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) finally hit the capitol with every bit of firepower she had left, and after the city swiftly surrendered, she snapped and burned as much of the metropolis down as possible. You may disagree with her reasons for doing this from a moral, ethical, or even strategic angle, but she did it. The question is, does all the blame lay on Daenerys? Is the destruction of King’s Landing also the fault of Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage).

Since Season 5, Tyrion has been working to advise Daenerys on how best to take the Iron Throne and rule Westeros, and he has repeatedly blundered. He failed to keep Meereen safe without the help of Daenerys and her dragons. His all-too-obvious strategy for taking Westeros ruined Yara Greyjoy’s Iron Fleet and effectively killed off House Martell and House Tyrell. Blinded by his emotions, he has put the fate of his brother Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) before his queen’s commands and let former wife Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) easily manipulate him. It’s not that Tyrion should have betrayed Daenerys earlier; it’s that he’s repeatedly failed to actually act as a good advisor. Tyrion fucked up.

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Let’s go back to how Tyrion Lannister even became Daenerys Targaryen’s Hand in the first place. At the beginning of Season 5, Varys (Conleth Hill) has smuggled Tyrion to Pentos and he tries to convince him to help put Daenerys on the Iron Throne. When Tyrion finally gets to Meereen (care of a rather perilous road trip across Essos), he plays it cool. In Season 5, Episode 8, “Hardhome,” Tyrion and Daenerys have their first conversation alone. Tyrion says that at this point, he’s heard stories that she is “terrible.” (So Tyrion isn’t going in blind, guys! He knows she has a propensity to take what she wants with fire and blood.) This takes Dany aback, but Tyrion then explains he wants to see if she’s the “right kind of terrible…The kind that prevents your people from being even more so.”

The rest of the conversation is chilling in how it foreshadows what unravels in Season 8. Way back in his first chat with Daenerys, reveals he trusts Varys and Jaime. Daenerys is not happy to hear that Tyrion still stumps for the man who murdered her father, but she lets it slide. When she reveals that her deepest desire is to take back the Iron Throne, Tyrion immediately advises Daenerys to not pursue the Iron Throne. He points out that she’s doing well in Meereen and that it will be hard for her to get allies in Westeros. This is when Daenerys coldly gives her speech about breaking the wheel of monarchy in the Seven Kingdoms. Rather than see it as a sign that she might literally break the people of Westeros, Tyrion accepts it.

If Tyrion was as clever as he likes to claim to be, he should have kept his eyes open to Daenerys’s lust for the Iron Throne. He should have remembered that she can be rather terrible. Instead, by Season 6, Episode 10, Tyrion is giving Dany a heartfelt speech about he spent his life as a cynic because he saw where blind belief got people, but that he believes in her. (Womp, womp! ALSO TAKE YOUR OWN ADVICE!)

By the time that Tyrion and Daenerys are in Dragonstone in Season 7, he is calling the shots when it comes to strategy. He is so hell-bent on not scaring the Westerosi with Daenerys’s dragons, Dothraki, and Unsullied, he sets up a foolhardy plan that his siblings easily foil. There’s even a scene where Yara Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand, and Olenna Tyrell are all advising Daenerys to attack King’s Landing quickly and get it over in a day. Tyrion says don’t do this, and while his intentions make sense, they wind up costing infinite more lives.

As grim as it is, in military strategy, there is some wisdom in striking an opponent in a swift and brutal attack that ends the war as soon as possible. If Daenerys had taken King’s Landing with here three dragons way back in Season 7, it’s likely she would have won. There would have been casualties, but with the united support of Yara, Ellaria, and Olenna, she probably would not have gone on a rampage after the city surrendered. Which means King’s Landing would have been better off, as would all of Westeros, had she done this.

Instead, Daenerys took Tyrion’s counsel, which was so obviously Tyrion that Jaime and Cersei saw through it. His strategic advice failed Daenerys, as has his personal counsel. He was unable to tame the dragon because dragons cannot be tamed. Furthermore, he put his family and his faith in her ahead of what he could see with his own eyes. Tyrion arguably set Dany up to fail in Westeros, which led to all the chaos that unfolded in “The Bells.”

So, yeah, it is kind of Tyrion’s fault. Can he find absolution in the series’ finale, or will he continue to mess things up?

The Game of Thrones Series Finale premieres Sunday, May 19, 2019 on HBO.

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