A Clash of Kings ÔÇö Tyrion I

Tyrion arrives with a paper naming him Hand and dines with a sister who wants him gone; he means to do justice in a city that expects none.

The chapter retold

Tyrion arrives in KingÔÇÖs Landing holding a piece of paper that says he is the Hand of the King, and the rest of the chapter is a demonstration of how little paper is worth in this city without leverage to back it. His sister receives him with open contempt ÔÇö she is regent, she has run the capital in TywinÔÇÖs name, and she has no intention of yielding it to a brother she has despised since the day their mother died bearing him. Dinner between them is a duel conducted entirely in courtesies, each sentence a blade wearing a napkin.

What makes the scene matter is TyrionÔÇÖs clear-eyed read of the table heÔÇÖs sitting at: the small council is CerseiÔÇÖs, the gold cloaks answer to Janos Slynt, and the boy king is a live grenade with a crown on it. He arrives meaning to do something no one else at that table has attempted in years ÔÇö actual governance, actual justice ÔÇö in a city that has stopped expecting either. The gap between his intentions and his resources is the whole of his story for the rest of the book, and it opens right here, over wine neither sibling is really drinking.

This movement: The Comet

• A red comet splits the sky; five would-be kings each read their crown in it.
• On Dragonstone, Maester Cressen tries to poison the red priestess and drinks first; Stannis proclaims Joffrey a bastard born of incest.
• Tyrion takes the Hand's chair with Bronn at his back and starts removing his sister's men.
• Beyond the Wall, the Old Bear leads three hundred swords north into silence.