A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Tyrion XI
Jaime frees his brother and pays with a truth about Tysha that unmakes them both; Tyrion climbs to the Hand's chambers and settles accounts with a crossbow.
The chapter retold
Jaime Lannister frees his brother from the black cells the night before his execution, but the rescue comes bundled with a confession that undoes Tyrion far more thoroughly than the death sentence ever could: the truth about Tysha, Tyrion's first wife, a girl Tywin had gang-raped by his own guardsmen and then paid Jaime to lie to Tyrion about, claiming she had only ever been a whore. Every scrap of self-loathing Tyrion has carried about himself since that lie was planted turns out to have been manufactured, deliberately, by his own father.
Tyrion does not run. He climbs to the Hand's chambers and finds Shae there, in his father's bed, wearing the chain of office Tywin once made Tyrion wear as acting Hand ÔÇö and strangles her with it, the woman whose testimony convicted him becoming, in the moment, an extension of everything he has been betrayed by. He finds Tywin on the privy afterward and puts two crossbow bolts into him at close range, ending, with brutal irony, the life of a man famous for insisting a Lannister does not, in the end, shit gold. Shae and Lord Tywin Lannister both die in this chapter, and Tyrion's story as a Lannister of Casterly Rock effectively ends with them.
This movement: Gold, Ice, and the Hanged Woman
- Jaime frees his brother; Tyrion detours through the Tower of the Hand: Shae in the bed, Tywin on the privy, a crossbow for both.
- Lysa Arryn flies from the Moon Door screaming about tears and dark words; Littlefinger blames a singer.
- Jon Snow is elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch on Sam's clever tongue.
- Epilogue at the Twins: the Brotherhood hangs Freys for a hooded woman whose throat gapes ÔÇö Lady Stoneheart remembers.
The fallen ÔÇö spoilers
- Shae ÔÇö Found in the Hand's bed wearing the chain of hands; the chain served a last purpose.
- Lord Tywin Lannister ÔÇö Two bolts on the privy from the son he sentenced. He did not, in the end, shit gold.