• Marlowe (edited 8 years ago)
    +3

    I do like Book!Shae better, simply because she let Tyrion know that she is doing for the money and ascension several times, she doesn't play much of a mummers farce, but Tyrion is fooled by himself in believing she has deep care for him. She does have some care, but not nearly as much as Tyrion imagines, and in the end, his actions are nothing more than passionate crime, completely unjustifiable in a moral dilemma. While Show!Shae seems to try to deceive Tyrion a bit.

    That's pretty much my interpretation too. Book!Shae showed that, for everything he told himself (and everyone else) about his perceptiveness and adeptness at 'the game', he still had this huge, deep-rooted blind spot that was ripe for exploitation. There's also the whole Tysha parallel, which all combines to make Tyrion's mental state and actions following all of this a bit more understandable.

    His relationship with Book!Shae puts his shortcomings on display, to the point that it's only through extreme luck that he avoided a Ned-type fate. His relationship with Show!Shae didn't really show any of that. It was an interesting interaction in its own right, and it showed different things about the characters and had some own themes in its own right. I still prefer Book!Shae, but to each their own. Wouldn't be surprised at all if you're right on about GRRM, too.