When it comes to power, Tyrion Lannister knows that he isn't going to get it through strength. Despite being everyone's favorite character, Tyrion is despised in Westeros due to his small stature and lose morals. As such, as Tyrion explains to Jon Snow, '[w]ell, my brother has his sword and I have my mind. And a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone'. In fact, Tyrion's mind helps him climb the ranks of the kindom even sooner than he expected. With Joffrey as the new king, Robb Stark marching on King's Landing, and Ned Stark dead (insert obligatory joke about Sean Bean dying in every movie/show he’s in), Tywin Lannister dispatches his son to King's Landing to serve as Hand of the King. As a result, we the viewers get one of the greatest scenes in television history...
So, the question becomes, does Tyrion rule in a Machiavellian manner? Well, the question is a more complex then it might seem. Machiavelli's work has often been simplified to the idea that it is better to be feared than loved, but such a statement ignores the complexity of Machiavelli's arguement. As I wrote in an essay for my History of Political Thought Class...
“As Machiavelli sees it, the average man is ‘ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours’.[1] Note the term as, ‘as long as you succeed’, which essentially means that being nice to an individual will only guarantee loyalty as long as the prince doesn’t fail. Therefore, to rely on kindness is to rely on luck and, as Machiavelli has argued, the prince who is most successful is the one who relies least on fortune.[2] Comparing fortune to a river, Machiavelli argues that one must be prepared for misfortune to flood one’s banks, lest it destroy everything that a person has worked for.[3] In the political sense, this means ensuring that those who could abandon a ruler are kept in their place via fear. As ‘fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails’, Machiavelli argues that a man frightened of a ruler will not challenge them.[4].
However, unlike other writers, Machiavelli never states that violence and other cruel actions should be considered moral.[5] Rather he says that they are necessary sometimes, but only within a given set of parameters. While it is good to be feared, to be hated is often a death sentence for a prince, and, to avoid that, he recommends avoiding taking one’s subjects’ property and women, and to only taking life when one has just cause.[6] Provided a king never acts in a wanton and cruel manner, one could argue that he can still have a reign that was mostly committed to being just.”
Essentially, people are bad which means that a ruler must step outside of the bounds of morality at certain points in order to keep control. That being said, a ruler should not act in a fashion that makes him hated, and forces the people to view him as a tyrant (read: Joffrey). So, Tyrion comes to court, and, for the most part, he does a pretty good job. He successfully prevents Joffrey from doing anything catastrophic and his defenses help ensure the Lannister victory at the Battle of the Blackwater. At the same time, he never does anything to make him hated by the people. While certain members of the old council disappear, but neither the population of King's Landing nor the viewer/reader at home really cares that he shipped off the former commander of the City Watch.
However, Tyrion ultimately fails at this Machiavellian strategy of governing for the simple fact that, despite everything, he still winds up being hated. Part of that is beyond his control. As the Kingdom is fighting a civil war, food supplies and refugees become a major problem, and despite Tyrion's best efforts people do end up suffering. Secondly, the nature of his short status means that the people were more likely to despise him due to prejudice, so he would have needed to have gone the extra mile to win their trust (spoiler for season 3), an action such as Margarey Tyrell’s passing out food to the subjects would have greatly helped his efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people (end spoilers).
However, Tyrion's biggest enemies are not the common people but his fellow nobles at court. While The Prince focused mostly on the relationship between king and commoner, the idea of making sure that people don't hate you also applies to a rulers' nobility. In this area, Tyrion seems to have done nothing but make enemies. He sends his sister's only daughter to Dorne without consulting her, arrests the Grand Maester, and criticizes and slaps Joffrey (as I mentioned before, these actions under any other context should have won him a medal). Like his relationship with the subjects, he was on poor footing to begin with. Cersei hated him since their mother died birthing him, and many other members of the nobility were subject to the same prejudices that the commoners in King's Landing believed in. This hatred ultimately culminates in Cersei ordering one of the King's Guard to murder Tyrion. Luckily he survives, but in that time, his father returns to King's Landing, his enemies consolidate, and Tyrion finds himself without allies (and things only get worse from there...).
One of the greatest things about Tyrion as a character is that he doesn't care what other people think and he's willing to call others out on their faults. However, it’s that same personality that causes him to be hated by both commoner and nobility. As Machiavelli noted, a ruler must not be hated, and, in Tyrion’s case, he never seemed to try and prevent or lessen the animosity that others felt towards him. Otherwise he ruled just as Machiavelli said that a ruler should, attempting to be a just ruler, while toeing the line of morality when need be. Unfortunately, while his few friends appreciated him, and the nobility did begin to fear him, he was never able to achieve the popularity that would have allowed him to hold on to power.
To that's how Tyrion Lannister fits in with Machiavelli. Stayed tuned for how well Francis Underwood, the anti-hero of the acclaimed miniseries House of Cards fits the Machiavellian model...
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