tw opinion but i think the way people act towards sso sometimes is kinda crazy. maybe it’s just me but people are getting mad at every single update ever and it’s getting annoying, bc it’s not even valid constructive criticism at this point it’s just people being haters and being all “i miss the old sso 🥺 everything is so ugly now.” like okay. well u can’t get the old sso back because surprise that’s what happens when things age, especially when new graphics techniques are developed and more experienced artists are hired.

and like another thing is that in recent years they’ve added SO many new things that players have been asking for for years, but people are complaining when they’re actually implemented. like have we not been begging for new character models for forever why are u guys mad now. omg.

to an extent i get it but overall i think a lot of the people in this community are just super negative about everything and people need to take a chill pill.

Tyrion and Zuko: The Good Bad Guy, The Bad Good Guy

I’ve never seen anyone compare Tyrion Lannister and Zuko, but the parallels seem so obvious to me. I know there’s been a lot of comparisons in fandom to Zuko and his arc and a lot of discussion of what makes a good redemption arc and I’m not necessarily talking about this from that perspective, because I don’t really think Tyrion is on a redemption arc (and also reject the idea that I’ve seen bandied about that he is on a “villain” arc or that his arc is in opposition to his brother Jaime’s, with Jaime as the one who is usually seen by fandom as set up for redemption.) But I do think the parallels between the two characters are striking. I don’t think they’re 1:1 and even many of the parallels I make are not intended to be exact, as these two characters have narratives that are structured differently, and of course there are differences based on medium and target audience between the two series.

This is part one of a series of posts on these two characters, and this part will focus on how these characters are positioned structurally by the narrative.

Spoilers for both series to follow!

The biggest, most immediate difference between Tyrion and Zuko is that Zuko is positioned as an antagonist at the beginning of the story (although not necessarily a villain), while Tyrion is not antagonistic to the identifiable heroes at the beginning of AGOT, and is in fact the only Lannister not to be positioned that way by the narrative initially. In fact, part of this meta and part of my purposes for comparing them is to argue that Zuko’s narrative arc is not a straight line from villain to hero, which makes him very similar to Tyrion and his narrative positioning as the “good bad guy, the bad good guy” as Peter Dinklage says of his character on Game of Thrones. Even though Zuko’s mission at the beginning of the series is antagonistic to Team Avatar, he is still presented as a POV character with whom we are meant to sympathize, if at first only through sympathetic characters in his story like Iroh and characters who act as antagonistic in his own story, like Zhao and later Azula.

Tyrion also is presented to us as on the “bad side” of the narrative. He’s a Lannister, and many of the immediately sympathetic characters dislike and distrust him. Yet he is positioned sympathetically almost immediately as seen through characters like Jon Snow and Bran, and in contrast to his brother and sister.

Zuko and Tyrion also are positioned similarly in the narrative in relation to the way they are paired with and against the other characters in the story. Heroic narratives often make use of the Rule of Three, and one way in which this is shown is in presenting the main characters of the story as a triad. This type of narrative will have a protagonist, a deuteragonist, and a tritagonist. Usually the protagonist and the deuteragonist are male, and serve as foils and shadows of each other, and the third protagonist, or tritagonist, is a female character. You could argue about who takes the second and third position but it’s inarguable that in Avatar: The Last Airbender (further referred to as ATLA), these characters are Aang, Zuko, and Katara. In A Song of Ice and Fire (further referred to as ASOIAF) these characters are Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister. This is also why it’s often theorized that Tyrion is the third head of the three-headed dragon that Dany and Jon are both part of, despite not having any Targaryen blood.

The other narrative structure that ASOIAF uses with regard to the characters that mirrors ATLA is what George R R Martin coins “the five key players” in his original manuscript of ASOIAF:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. (source)

I have theorized from what he says here that when Martin originally conceptualized his story, he intended for Tyrion to be younger than he is when we see him in the series, as Martin says that the five central characters will “grow from children to adults,” and Tyrion is already an adult as of his first chapter in A Game of Thrones. However, the fact that Tyrion is quite a bit older than the other four is thematically important. Tyrion is a character who, when we see him at the beginning of the story, has lost his innocence and become embittered by an abusive childhood and a lifetime of cruelty directed towards him because of his dwarfism. Yet Tyrion, thoughout the series, often relates to the child characters specifically because of that lost innocence. He offers help and advice to Jon, Bran, and Sansa throughout the series, and as of ADWD is on his way to join Daenerys.

Similarly, Zuko is positioned against the four main child characters of ATLA that make up Team Avatar, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph, and has moments where he relates to them even before he seeks to join them. And although Zuko is only sixteen and very much a kid (which becomes even more apparent when he joins the gaang), and Tyrion is an adult, he is still a young man and his relationship to Jon is something like that of an older brother.

Zuko and Aang’s relationship could be compared with that of Jon and Tyrion. Jon and Aang offer friendship to someone who they should consider an enemy, and Tyrion and Zuko end up becoming unexpected mentors to the younger boys. In both stories, this serves to highlight the tragedy of how war pits people against each other and what each of these characters has lost.

Aang to Zuko: If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?

-S1E13

Even after ADWD and all the war and strife between Stark and Lannister, Jon still considers Tyrion his friend. Obviously, we do not have the ending of ASOIAF to compare to ATLA, but I find it an interesting parallel, nonetheless.

Another thing that makes the characters similar on a structural level is the use of visual symbolism to show the characters’ internal struggle and duality. This is a clever and immediate way for the audience to understand that this is a character who we are meant to see as morally complex. Visual symbolism is more obvious in a medium like animation, and the specific piece of visual symbolism is something that was downplayed in ASOIAF’s television adaptation, so it might be less apparent, but I’ve talked before about how Tyrion’s heterochromia is a visual symbol of his dual nature as a character and his struggle with his identity.

Similarly, Zuko’s scar functions as a symbol of his duality. And although Tyrion also has a dramatic facial mutilation to compare Zuko’s burn scar to, I am comparing Tyrion’s heterochromia to Zuko’s scar instead because of the symbolism associated with eyes and seeing.

It is often said that “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” and the reason for this is obvious. Often we look into another person’s eyes to get a glimpse of who they are, to understand and empathize, to connect and hope they connect with us. Therefore, in fiction, eyes can often tell you a lot about a character’s identity. Having a scar over one eye is an immediate signal of Zuko’s conflict from the moment he is introduced to the audience. His stated goal from episode one is to capture the Avatar, but as the series goes on we see what this goal really is: an impossible task given to him by his father because it is impossible. Therefore, Zuko’s desire to regain his identity as prince of the Fire Nation is put into question. And what better way to represent a conflict with Zuko’s identity towards the Fire Nation than with an injury caused by fire? I’ll talk much more about Zuko’s scar in part two because this is an extremely important part of his narrative.

Tyrion’s heterochromatic eyes function in a similar way, and mirror the way Martin uses color symbolism in ASOIAF. Tyrion is described in the books as having one green eye and one black one, a fact that was not included in the show save for one scene in the pilot, and was eventually discarded, as were Dany’s purple eyes, because of the difficulty colored contacts posed for the actors, and because, as I suspect, it was decided that it was not enough of a noticeable detail to be worth the trouble. It’s a lot easier to get away with things like this in animation (and Zuko’s scar doesn’t work in a live action series for similar practical reasons), but Tyrion’s “mismatched” eyes are a detail often mentioned in the books. Tyrion’s green eye is the eye color he shares with his brother and sister and father, and is known as a distinctive Lannister trait, representing their physical beauty and perfection. And like Tyrion’s disability, his heterochromia is an imperfection and so not tolerated in a House that prides itself on perfection. His black eye, in contrast, while often called his “evil” eye and is a cause, in addition to his dwarfism, for others to treat him like a pariah, brings him closer to who he is as a person separate from his family, as dark eyes represent earthiness and intelligence.

Zuko’s scar also marks him as other the way Tyrion’s heterochromia marks him. It is often called attention to by characters in the series. In the first season it is often used to make him look frightening. Yet it also marks him in the eyes of the audience and the eyes of other characters as a victim of the Fire Nation and a survivor. In this way, the meaning of Zuko’s scar becomes flipped and it is his unmarred side that links him to what appears on the surface to be the order and perfection and superiority of the Fire Nation, but which, just like Zuko’s face if we are only looking at it from one side, hides a warped horror.

In part two I talk about how these two characters have similar trauma and conflict with relationship to their families and how that shapes their narratives.