It was many years later when in the night he awoke, and by the counsel of his guards, was reconciled to walk the walls of his own castle to witness the flames upon the Sunset Sea.
The planks and blackened banners bearing the squid paid evidence towards the theory that the ironborn had meant to launch a surprise attack. The red and gold which met his view had at first convinced him that an attack of that sort had been successful, putting in doubt his title as Shield of Lannisport.
Yet by the creature swooping over the sea, he would in later days hear reports of charred corpses, and by what precognition only a dragon who could fly and smell and see from afar must know, could the incoming fleet be diverted by such colours as were on House Lannister's banners.
Lord Tywin could not smile, yet his wife had done him proud. She had earned his darkest hate, his deepest understanding, solidified all in him that was stone, and still she clung to his thoughts.
He would never be free of her.
In the months that followed, there were any manner of plans drawn up; levies raised; ships prepared. For when Lord Tywin stood on the parapets, and the dragon perched on a corner that crumbled as it did, that creature took flight - and there was no need, he knew, to wait for Stannis to prove his worth as a commander at sea.
When time came for those on the mainland to sail for the Iron Islands, Lord Tywin relished the appetite of war. House Greyjoy rejected the crown, but Lord Tywin's home had been their first attack, and so he took the campaign as though the insult to the crown was merely incidental.
The queen, so thin, hollow, a reed and barely clinging to each day through her coal-haired children, was watery behind the eyes until the occasional spark lit her fuse, but she was no more.
It could be seen far off, and Lord Tywin had judders thinking back to when he had saw it last. By the screeching overheard, the blackened buildings coming into sight, and red and gold dancing on the water, could he struggle to compose how to relay that his wife had taken it upon herself to go a step further.
He had said he and the rest of them would storm the Iron Islands.
Lord Tywin could well understand the creature circling what remained of the Iron Islands, those stragglers in peril, so many corpses in the sea; Joanna knew only grief and here was a chance to take it out. She was a dragon and that power must be tempting. She was his wife, and if she would have counseled a softer approach, she was winged and fiery and knew few bounds.
Lord Tywin hadn't considered that after his wife became a dragon, he would expand upon his understanding of their marriage even since.