- "By the end, she had so much silver that the coins were slipping from her fingers and rolling onto the floor."
- ―Tyrion Lannister.
Tysha is an unseen character in Game of Thrones. She has been mentioned by Tyrion Lannister as his former wife.
Her name is pronounced "Tie-shuh", not "Tish-uh".
Biography
Background
When Tyrion Lannister was sixteen years old, he met an orphaned wheelwright's daughter on the road, apparently the victim of an attempted rape. While his brother, Jaime, rode off after the attackers, Tyrion helped Tysha recover from the ordeal, and they became lovers. They found a drunk septon willing to marry them in exchange for a bribe and briefly, they lived as husband and wife for two weeks, until Tyrions father Lord Tywin learned what had happened when the septon told him after he had sobered up. Jaime confessed that he organized the incident to do something nice for his little brother, and Tysha was actually a prostitute. Jaime thought it was time that Tyrion had sex with a girl, and paid Tysha and the would-be rapers to pretend it was real so Tyrion would think a girl genuinely wanted to have sex with him without having to pay for it. However, Jaime did not anticipate that Tyrion would marry the girl, nor what their father's reaction would be to that. In a fury that his son would dare to marry a commoner, Tywin had his guards gang-rape Tysha whilst Tyrion was forced to watch. Tywin sarcastically had the guards pay Tysha by dropping a silver coin in her hand for each man who took her. By the end, there were so many silver coins that the pile was slipping out of her hand and coins were rolling along the floor. She was then sent on her way, and Tyrion never heard of her again.[1]
Since this incident, Tyrion has disdained love and romance in favor of liaisons with prostitutes for money.
Season 1
At the Lannister battle camp, prior to the Battle of the Green Fork, Tyrion Lannister is playing a drinking game with Bronn and Shae, when Bronn mentions that he overheard while playing dice with some Lannister guardsmen that Tyrion was married once. Tyrion then explains the story of his marriage to Tysha.[2]
Season 2=
Prior to the Battle of the Blackwater, Tyrion's sister Cersei intends to take petty revenge on Tyrion, by capturing the new whore that he has fallen in love with and taken to King's Landing with him. For a moment Tyrion thinks that she has captured his lover Shae, though it is quickly revealed that she captured the wrong whore, mistaking that Ros was his lover. She Cersei gloats to Tyrion, she references the past incident with Tysha by quipping, "I have your little whore...tell me, have you married this one yet? No? Good. Father will be so pleased."[3]
Season 3
Tywin forced Tyrion into an arranged marriage with the young Sansa Stark, remarking that it is past time that Tyrion was married. Tyrion angrily snaps back that he was married once, unless Tywin has forgotten. Tywin coldly says that he has not.[4]
Later, when Tyrion is commiserating about his situation with Bronn, the sellsword advises him that it is not the worst situation. Tyrion says that Shae - a whore who became his lover and secretly brought to the capital - will not be happy about his marriage to Sansa. Bronn prods Tyrion with questions, sarcastically asking if he ever intended to actually marry a whore such as Shae. Bronn quips, "how did marrying a whore work out for you the first time?" Annoyed, Tyrion laments, "I should never have told you about that".[5]
In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Tysha is the orphaned daughter of crofter, not a wheelwright's daughter. Tyrion recounts the story in a very similar manner to the series. He does not tell the story to Bronn and Shae together, but to each of them separately on two different occasions. However, in the series he omits the detail that he was forced to join in the gang rape on pain of his father's wrath to complete his own humiliation. It is also implied he couldn't avoid becoming a aroused.
A slight difference is that, due to some characters being aged-up in the TV series, Tyrion was 13 years old when he encountered Tysha in the books, but in the TV series he states that he was 16 years old.
See also
Tysha on A Wiki of Ice and Fire (MAJOR spoilers from the books)
