How did Tyrion Lannister become the dumbest character on Game of Thrones?

The Ringer

Peter Dinklage's Tyrion used to be the most clever person in Westeros -- now he's the dumbest. Or as Danny Heifitz put it, "Tyrion used to drink and know things. Now he just drinks." Heifitz adds that it's hard to imagine the Tyron of Season 1 listening to the Tyrion of Season 8. "The past few seasons, Tyrion’s drains have been clogged," says Heifitz. "Suddenly the wisest man in the realm has become kind of a moron." He adds: "The most likely answer is that Tyrion is simply the most obvious example of a book character becoming thinner as a television character. Thrones condensed the final two seasons into a combined 13 episodes when the show probably could have stretched it to 20 (if not 30). Nobody has suffered from this concentration more than the master plotters—Tyrion, Varys, and Littlefinger—who went from seeming like marionette puppet-masters to guys who still love puppets but no longer have any strings connecting them to the wider world. George R.R. Martin has said his favorite character in the books is Tyrion, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he took extra thought when he wrote Tyrion’s chapters. The further the show strays from the books, the more treading water it does, and perhaps Tyrion is just the most glaring example after the travel gaps of Season 7. Regardless of why, there’s no question Tyrion isn’t as sharp as he used to be, and that’s a shame."

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