Some thoughts I have about Jaime’s weirwood dream in ASOS:
It opens by naming his old identity out loud. He tells himself he’s safe as long as he has his hand, then safe as long as he has a sword. That’s the whole of who he was: the hand, the blade, the name. Tywin gives him the sword. Cersei is the only light in the world. The Lannister legacy, past and present, standing before him.
Brienne pops up when he’s still defined by all of that. She’s in chains. She asks him for a sword. He frees her, and she has a sword now, and he can see her in this light as almost a knight, almost a beauty, and then her flames take life, and the darkness retreat some more.
And then Cersei tells him “The flames will burn so long as you live. When they die, so must you”.
Then his family leaves. Tywin and Cersei turn and go, and they take every Lannister ghost in the cavern with them, leaving just Jaime and Brienne alone.
And Brienne, in this dream, she starts in chains, then he frees her, then he arms her, and then her blade takes flame until she’s a second source of light, equal to him, standing beside him. He notices her body again, sees that she has more of a woman’s shape. When she touches him, he shudders, because she’s warm.
Then the ghosts comes. But it isn’t the ghosts that hurt him. His flame only starts to flicker when he gives in to the guilt, and the more it swallows him the lower the flame burns, until it goes out. Jaime’s flame dies because he surrenders to despair.
And what is the rule the dream laid down? As long as the flames burns, he lives. When they die, so does he.
His flame dies. Brienne’s is still burning.
And now Brienne is the hand holding the sword and the only light in the world.
When he collapses under guilt, she still stands. She stands between him and his ghosts. She stands between him and the darkness. His flame went out yes, but her light still remains.
So I don’t know if the dream necessarily means Jaime dies before Brienne, but that his living or dying is tied to her. As long as the flames burn, he lives. Once they go out, he’s gone. Hers is still burning.
If she falters, if her light goes out, that’s where his death is.
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