The 30 most heartwarming moments on Game of Thrones

4. Oberyn offers to be Tyrion’s champion (“Mockingbird”)

SARAH: Following Joffrey’s death in Season 4, Cersei used her considerable skills to build a convincing case against her brother Tyrion, whom she had accused of her son’s murder. Whether or not she actually believed he did it is debatable, but the fact remains that she saw an opportunity to execute Tyrion and made the most of it. It goes without saying that her wealth and power played a vital role in convincing so many people to lie at her brother’s trial. With Oberyn Martell, whom she knew to be a loving father to his many daughters, she tried a different approach—emotional manipulation.

If Oberyn had been a stupider man, Cersei’s ploy might have worked. After all, his hatred of the Lannisters was famed, and logic dictates that he would have jumped at the chance to kill one of Lord Tywin’s children. But Oberyn wasn’t so blinded by hate that he couldn’t see the wood for the trees, and he also had a very good memory. Cersei had despised her little brother from the moment he was born, a fact that she was all too happy to share with Oberyn and his sister, Elia, during their childhood visit to Casterly Rock. So when he visits Tyrion in his cell, he does so knowing that Tyrion has been fighting a losing battle his entire life.

Oberyn stood to gain something from becoming Tyrion’s champion, it’s true. That doesn’t mean that he would have offered had he genuinely believed Tyrion to be guilty of regicide. Had his offer been motivated purely by his desire to kill Gregor Clegane, he wouldn’t have told Tyrion the story of the first time they met. As a child, he could not understand why a newborn Tyrion was portrayed as such a monster, and as an adult, he reiterates the same sentiment, because he hasn’t seen any evidence to support the idea that Tyrion is deserving of his punishment. Put simply, he offers Tyrion the idea that there is nothing wrong with him at all, which goes against everything that Tyrion had been raised to believe about himself.