36. House Lannister and the Westerlands

Game of Thrones presents itself as the story of the Starks, following the four children as they become adults. But the political story is that of the Starks’ greatest rivals: House Lannister of Casterly Rock. Led by Lord Tywin Lannister, his children Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion are also close to the reins of power, if not holding them directly.

The Lannisters rule the Westerlands, a mountainous region in, obviously, the west of the Seven Kingdoms. Its major bordering regions are the Riverlands to the east, and the Reach to the south. The Iron Islands are not far to the north as well. The seat of power is Casterly Rock, a never-captured stronghold carved into a hill above the thriving city of Lannisport. The most famous trait of the Westerlands is their gold mines, which have turned House Lannister into the richest family in Westeros.

Oddly, that’s about it for details about the Westerlands. Despite House Lannister’s obvious importance to the story, the location itself is only shown a handful of times on Game of Thrones, when King Robb takes the offensive against the Lannisters in Season 2 and he meets Talisa Maegyr. You may have missed that these battles took place in the Westerlands, as the show doesn’t make a big deal out of it, and every scene takes place in a fairly generic army camp. With the Reach finally making an appearance in the sixth season, it’s easy to argue that the Westerlands as a setting are the least important on the show.

The Lannisters trace their heritage back to a legend of Westeros, Lann the Clever. This golden-haired trickster god was supposed to have swindled his way into Casterly Rock and took it from House Casterly, leaving a blond-haired brood of Lannisters in its place. With an origin story like this, praising charisma and scheming, the Lannisters were opposites and natural rivals for the straightforward, honest Starks of Winterfell, something seen from the beginning of Game of Thrones in Ned’s honor opposing Jaime’s sly smirk.

House Lannister ruled as Kings of the Rock for millennia, before joining the Kings of the Reach to attack Aegon Targaryen after the Conqueror had settled at King’s Landing. At the Field of Fire, Aegon and his sisters unleashed all three dragons against the assembled host, destroying it and capturing the last Lannister king, Loren, who surrendered and became Warden of the West.

The Lannisters were one of the most powerful Houses in the kingdoms, and played major roles throughout the Targaryen era, fighting in the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons, and helping put down the Blackfyre Rebellions. But their peak would be right before the events of the show, in the reign of the Mad King.

Lord Tywin Lannister came of age when his father, Tytos, had squandered Lannister money and power. Tywin set about regaining it, brutally suppressing the revolt of the ambitious House Reyne of Castamere. Tywin destroyed them so devastatingly that the song “The Rains of Castamere,” about his success, became the Lannister anthem. Tywin is also a friend to King Aerys II Targaryen, who had him named Hand.

The first Lannister children were born to Tywin and Joanna Lannister in his time as Hand. Joanna, a Lannister cousin, was a gentle and believed balance to Tywin’s ruthlessness, but she died giving birth to the dwarf, Tyrion, something for which neither Tywin nor Cersei ever forgave Tyrion.

Tywin’s time as Hand of the King ended as Aerys Targaryen descended further into paranoia, turning him against the man who ruled the Seven Kingdoms in his name. Aerys rejected a betrothal of Cersei to Prince Rhaegar, and raised Jaime Lannister to the Kingsguard, removing him from consideration to be the heir to Casterly Rock, which Tywin took as a personal affront. (There were also rumors that Aerys pursued Joanna Lannister, giving rise to speculation about Tyrion’s true parentage.)

The Lannisters nursed their grudge from the Westerlands, as Aerys appointed weaker Hands and descended further into madness. When the Mad King’s cruelty triggered Robert’s Rebellion, the Lannisters were the only Great House to remain neutral, despite Tywin’s previous bonds to Aerys. After the Battle of the Trident, when Targaryen forces were defeated, Tywin’s army arrived at King’s Landing. Aerys, believing his old friend had come to reinforce the capital, let them in.

But Tywin instead unleashed his army on the capital, particularly his two lead henchmen, Ser Gregor Clegane and Ser Amory Lorch, to rape and pillage and murder the Targaryen heirs, thus proving their loyalty to the future King Robert. King Aerys planned to set the city ablaze with wildfire, but Jaime Lannister, sworn Kingsguard, stabbed his ruler in the back to prevent it, becoming the Kingslayer.

In order to shore up his support, Robert wed Cersei Lannister, a marriage of alliance and nothing more. Cersei despised Robert for remaining in love with the now-dead Lyanna Stark, and for abusing her in drunken rages. She continued an incestuous affair with her twin Jaime, and bore him three children, Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella. She had first had one of Robert’s children, but it died shortly after birth. (In the novels, Cersei deliberately aborts the child; it’s unclear if the death was intentional on the show.)

When Game of Thrones starts, the parentage of Cersei’s children becomes the driver of the plot. Bran Stark catches Cersei and Jaime screwing, and is thrown out the window—the investigation leads Catelyn Stark to arrest Tyrion Lannister, for which Tywin starts the War of the Five Kings. Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, Ned Stark investigates his predecessor Jon Arryn’s murder and, following in his footsteps, discovers that Joffrey and the other children are born of incest.

Cersei, feeling the walls pressing in on her, reacts with violence: she helps Robert to his death by having his squire, her cousin Lancel Lannister, give him undiluted wine. Then she, with Lord Petyr Baelish’s help, puts down Ned’s coup against Joffrey. Joffrey, who increasingly shows himself to be an uncontrollable sadist, has Ned executed, leaving King’s Landing under Lannister control.

The Lannister armies, however, do not fare so well. Robb Stark deceives Tywin, and sneak attacks Jaime’s army, capturing the Kingslayer. With one Lannister army defeated, and Kings Stannis and Renly raising their armies to attack King’s Landing, Tywin is forced onto the defensive in Harrenhal. Because the decision to execute Ned was such a disaster, Tywin sends his son Tyrion to King’s Landing as Acting Hand.

Tyrion’s time in King’s Landing is largely spent preparing for the attack of Stannis Baratheon, in the Battle of Blackwater. Tyrion’s wildfire trap severely damages Stannis’ fleet, and Joffrey proves a coward, forcing Tyrion to lead the defenders, which he does, before being wounded.

But another plot of Tyrion’s ends up, accidentally, saving the capital and winning two wars. He sends Lord Baelish to Renly’s camp to find Catelyn Stark and offer her daughters in exchange for the Kingslayer. She rejects the proposal, but knows it exists, and Baelish finds himself in the camp after Renly’s death, where he offers an alliance to Margaery Tyrell that will let her be queen. This is to join the Lannister armies, smash Stannis’ attack, and wed King Joffrey—which happens, when Tywin and the Tyrells arrive in the nick of time at Blackwater.

The third season sees the Lannisters at the height of their power. All of them are in King’s Landing, the south is largely free of civil war with Stannis licking his wounds at Dragonstone, Robb’s army diminished by his betrayal of the marriage contract with the Freys, and Theon Greyjoy’s seizure of Winterfell in the North.

Tyrion’s ploy has also succeeded with Catelyn Stark: she secretly frees Jaime Lannister and sends him to King’s Landing, escorted by Brienne of Tarth. This act sows discord in the Stark camp, eventually resulting in Robb executing Lord Karstark, one of his most powerful vassals. Desperate for reinforcements, Robb attempts to reunite with House Frey when Tywin’s trap is sprung. The Hand, having spent the entire third season writing letters, finally has his communication revealed when the Freys and the Northern House Bolton betray Robb, murdering him, his wife, his mother, and most of his armies, essentially winning the War of the Five Kings.

In King’s Landing, however, things go less well. Both of his children in the capital chafe under Lord Tywin’s heavy-handedness, with Tyrion unhappy that he isn’t being given Casterly Rock, to which he should be the legal heir, and Cersei unhappy at Margaery’s increasing control over Joffrey. Still, there’s some happy news as Jaime and Brienne arrive at the capital, although the Kingslayer has lost his sword hand. With them comes the disgraced former maester Qyburn, who’d healed Jaime’s hand, and who ingratiates himself in the court, particularly with Cersei.

At the start of the fourth season, the Lannisters appear to have won the war, with their victories having been the climaxes of all three seasons. It doesn’t last: at the royal wedding, Joffrey Lannister-Baratheon is poisoned. Tyrion is the most likely culprit, and he’s imprisoned, although it’s revealed that the culprits were Olenna Tyrell, seeking to save her granddaughter from the sadistic Joffrey, and Petyr Baelish, attempting to sow chaos and continue his alliance with the Tyrells.

Tyrion’s trial breaks the power of the Lannisters. His sister and father manipulate the proceedings against him, but Tyrion fights back, revealing their hypocrisies. He demands trial by combat, and Tywin’s henchman, the giant Mountain, Ser Gregor Clegane, frightens away any of Tyrion’s sympathizers—except for Prince Oberyn Martell, Elia’s brother, who is in King’s Landing to take revenge against the Lannisters for their murder of his sister so many years before.

Oberyn defeats the Mountain in combat, but before striking the final blow, attempts to shame Lord Tywin by having the Mountain confess that the Lannisters ordered Elia’s murder. But the poisoned, dying Clegane is just alive enough to grab Oberyn and kill him. Tyrion loses his trial and is sentenced to death.

Tyrion has allies in the court who don’t want him to die, however. His brother Jaime and Lord Varys free the youngest Lannister, who goes to take revenge, shooting and killing his father Tywin before fleeing the city.

With Tywin dead, a power vacuum takes hold in the capital in the fifth season, to be filled by whoever can manipulate the good-natured, weak-willed King Tommen. Margaery Tyrell, once she marries him, gains the upper hand and taunts Cersei about it. Cersei also finds herself increasingly out of favor even with her own family, as Kevan Lannister, Tywin’s brother, refuses to serve on the Small Council she’s set up as her own, without Tommen’s input.

Cersei, however, is not the sort to suffer abuse, and hatches a plan to remove the Tyrells. Like most of Cersei’s plans, it’s initially clever, but incredibly short-sighted. She recruits a religious leader among the poor of King’s Landing called the High Sparrow and empowers him to make an army of believers called the Faith Militant. She points them at Margaery’s brother Loras, who is arrested for his homosexuality. Margaery is implicated as well, for committing perjury to cover for her brother.

But Cersei grows overconfident and, visiting the High Sparrow, finds herself arrested for her crimes of adultery and incest. She is imprisoned and tortured, until given the opportunity to conduct a Walk of Atonement, where her hair is shaved, she’s stripped naked, and she’s forced to walk in front of the jeering crowds to return to the Red Keep. There she discovers that her familial rivals have taken power, with Ser Kevan acting as Hand of the King with Pycelle’s support. The one bit of good news: Qyburn has apparently succeeded in reanimating Ser Gregor Clegane, now appointed to the Kingsguard.

Jaime isn’t present for this since he’s been sent to Dorne to recover the other child, Myrcella, engaged to Prince Trystane Martell and threatened by Ellaria Sand, Oberyn’s paramour. The less said about the Dorne journey the better, but it ends with Myrcella’s death by poison. Tyrion, meanwhile, is on a journey across the Narrow Sea to Essos, where he ends up as an adviser to Daenerys Targaryen.

In the sixth season, Cersei, Jaime, and Olenna Tyrell hatch a plan to threaten the Sparrows and free King’s Landing from their influence. They’re outmaneuvered by Margaery, who brings King Tommen into the High Sparrow’s influence. Jaime is sent away from King’s Landing to the Lannister armies in the Riverlands, and Tommen also removes Cersei’s best option for winning her trial when he bans trial by combat.

Cersei is forced to resort to desperate measures. In the season finale, she launches a decapitation strike, working with Qyburn to plant wildfire under the Sept of Baelor. She skips her trial, and only Margaery realizes what is happening. Before the young queen can convince the High Sparrow to evacuate, the plan goes off, the building is destroyed, and all Cersei’s enemies—the Sparrows, the Tyrells, Kevan Lannister, Grand Maester Pycelle—are killed. Although she prevented Tommen from attending, he realizes what has happened and commits suicide.

Jaime Lannister, having succeeded with his task in retaking the Riverlands, rides into King’s Landing to discover that Cersei, having killed literally everyone else in her way, is being crowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, with Qyburn as her Hand.

Cersei is, however, not the only Lannister to get a promotion. Tyrion becomes the leader of Meereen in Dany’s absence, and though his attempts at making peace in Slaver’s Bay fail, his loyalty and counsel when Dany returns gains her confidence, and she names him her Hand. He now sails with her army against his sister, Queen Cersei Lannister, First of Her Name.