Happy Brienne Week y'all !!! Here is my participation to the festivities.
Having scarcely drawn the chivalrous lady, I took liberties in my design. Some elements are straight out of my own imaginary, some are derived from the series, and some are sourced from fanart. @swordmaid 's has been a personal favourite and a great inspiration to root my rendition of the Lady Knight.
This illustration was made for the first day of Brienne Week [Day one - No Chance, No Choice - Duty, Chivalry, Honour | Protector, Heroism]
Shout out to @brienneweek for organising this grandiose event.
What do you mean when you say that Jaime and Brienneās relationship would have some toxic traits or that Jaime would be āa bit toxicā with her? What do you actually think heād be like with her in a relationship? Because I feel like most people frame them as the wholesome endgame, and I know you ship them, so Iām curious what you mean. Wouldnāt that go against the idea of them bringing the best of each other?
They do make each other better. But I think people have a very flattened idea of what ābetterā means. Better doesnāt mean āfixed.ā I donāt think their relationship would exist in this space of pure mutual improvement where they never struggle and never clash and every flaw is corrected by the other personās presence.
Jaime Lannister is not a wholesome person. Heās just not. Heās sharp-tongued, impulsive, reckless with himself and others, prone to dramatic gestures that prioritize the emotional moment over any kind of long-term thinking, and he has spent his entire adult life inside an abusive, codependent relationship, which means he has essentially no model for what healthy love looks like. And I think people assume that because Brienne is different (because sheās āgood), that Jaime will just naturally become a different person in response to her, like sheās some kind of corrective influence that will smooth out his edges by proximity. And thatās not how it works imo.
If we ever get to explore their relationship in the books, i donāt think all of Jaimeās intensity would simply disappear just because heās with Brienne. It would just be redirected, because all of that intensity isnāt a Cersei-specific trait. Itās a Jaime trait. Itās who he is. Heās not a measured person. He doesnāt do things by half. And the idea that heād suddenly become temperate and gentle just because heās finally with someone who is āgoodā is a fantasy.
And headcanoning away (as I donāt think weāll ever get time to actually go deep into this even if the book gives us time to see a glimpse of their relationship and dynamics), the way I read their relationship, I think Jaime in a relationship with Brienne would be a lot. I think heād be devoted to the point of recklessness; we already have evidence of this, given what he had done for Brienne or where Brienne is concerned. I think heād be protective in ways that would occasionally veer into possessiveness, and we have a preview of that too, because a man who punches Red Ronnet Connington in the face over a secondhand insult about a woman he isnāt even āwithā yet is not a man whoās going to handle threats to her (real or perceived) with grace and restraint. I think heād be overwhelming sometimes. Too present, too intense, too much in ways that would require Brienne to actively push back, which she would, and that friction is actually part of what makes them work. But it would still be friction.
I think his humor (which is one of his primary defense mechanisms) would still cut sometimes. Not because heād want to hurt her, but because Jaime defaults to deflection when heās vulnerable, and being genuinely, fully known by someone for the first time in his life would make him very vulnerable. Brienne would see through it with time, but seeing through it and not being affected by it are different things.
I think heād throw himself in front of danger for her without hesitation, and while I do think that is very romantic, itās also a form of not valuing his own life very highly, which is its own kind of problem that Brienne would have to confront. I think heād struggle with letting her fight her own battles for example, and not because he thinks sheās incapable but because the idea of her being hurt would be intolerable to him in a way that overrides his respect for her competence. I think that tension between knowing she can handle herself and being physically unable to stand by and let her would be a real, ongoing negotiation between them, not something that resolves neatly.
Brienne also has her own set of deeply ingrained patterns that would be genuinely difficult to navigate in a relationship, and I donāt think people engage with them enough because sheās the āgoodā one. But Brienne bottles things up. Thatās not a minor character trait either. She has been mocked, rejected, humiliated for the better part of her life, and she learned how to absorb that (more or less), but she has also built a wall, and walls donāt come down just because the person on the other side of them loves you. She doesnāt let people in, as she said so herself, she doesnāt know how to trust anymore. And with Jaime specifically, I think that tendency of hiding behind her walls would actually get worse before it gets better, because the stakes are higher. Sheād shut down. Sheād go quiet in a way that Jaime would find absolutely maddening. I donāt think he would handle that well at first. Heād push. Heād provoke. Heād say something sharp to make her react because her silence would be unbearable to him, and then theyād fight, and the fight would probably be clarifying in the end but the road there would not be pretty. Brienne is also self sacrificial to her own detriment, another problem they would have to contend with. Her willingness to throw herself away for honor and to sacrifice herself for those she loves would be something heād have a hard time dealing with. Heād try to stop her. Heād put himself in front of whatever she was trying to walk into, which is its own form of the exact same problem, and Brienne would be furious with him. Itās ironic because they would be essentially doing the same thing for each other, but that would 100% cause problems in their relationship.
I think they are two people whose defense mechanisms are almost perfectly designed to antagonize each other, and theyād have to learn to navigate that.
Something else they would have to contend with I think, is that love, for Jaime would not always express itself in ways that are noble. I think he would, without question, prioritize Brienneās life over other peopleās lives for example. If the choice is Brienne or the more honorable path, heās choosing Brienne. And thatās not a āflawā heād grow out of, thatās the shape his love takes. He already pushed a child out of a window to protect what he loved. Iām not equating the two situations, obviously, and of course that comes with its own price; we see in text how what he has done eats at him. But the capacity for that kind of ruthless, uncompromising prioritization is still in him. Itās just that now it would be in service of something real, and of someone who wouldnāt ask that of him. And Brienne, who structures her entire identity around doing the right thing, the honorable thing, would find that genuinely difficult to reconcile. Thatās complicated.
The sexual aspect would be no different as well imo. I think people picture Jaime and Brienneās physical relationship as something tender and tentative, a lot of gentle first times and nervous vulnerability, which, fine, there might be elements of that given Brienneās, and even Jaimeās to a certain extent, inexperience. But the text has been building a sexual charge between them since the moment they were on page together, and nothing about that charge is gentle. They are extremely physical people. And they match one another in that physicality. When it does go somewhere, I donāt think itās soft. I think itās the release of something thatās been held under enormous pressure for a very long time. I think the sheer amount of suppressed want between them would produce something pretty consuming. These are two people who have been starved in different ways, and I donāt think either of them would be particularly restrained about it once the door is open.
So when I say it would be a little toxic, thatās what I mean. I donāt think love has to be always portrayed as this clean cut nice thing, and I donāt think George does that either, even when itās a love that is āworthyā of existing, even when itās justified.
Also visual representation of their relationship at any point in time:
Who fell first and who fell harder: Jaime or Brienne?
Jaime fell first, no doubt, and they both fell incredibly hard. But Brienne became aware of her feelings first, because Jaime is very much a clown who canāt even begin to process why Brienne matters to him as much as she does.
Itās pretty clear to me that Jaime was drawn to Brienne from the moment he saw her, and that he started falling through the course of their journey. Everything she did pulled at him for reasons he couldnāt name. He is fascinated by her, irritated by her, challenged by her, and then, after he loses his hand, that attachment only intensifies. By the time he tells her the truth about Aerys, I think heās already very much in love, although not at all aware of it.
Heās in love when he dreams of her. Heās in love when he jumps into the bear pit. Heās in love when he wants to comfort her after the Red Wedding. Heās in love when they return to Kingās Landing and he has her arrested to protect her from Loras. Heās in love when he keeps catching himself wondering what sheād say about this or that. Heās in love when he gives her Oathkeeper and is hurt that she thinks the worst of him. Heās in love when he immortalizes her in the White Book.
If you asked Jaime when he fell in love with Brienne, he wouldnāt be able to tell you though - and I donāt think we as readers can pinpoint it either, because it was something that started small and overtook him to the point where itās simply part of who he is now. He is also not at all aware of how deep it runs, even though itās painfully obvious to everyone reading.
Brienne took longer. I donāt think she began to see him in a different light until his confession about Aerys. Before that, everything she did for him was just who Brienne is as a person, it says more about Brienneās character than her feelings. She would never not take care of him, never not try to nurse him back to life, regardless of whether it was Jaime or anyone else. But she was deeply judgmental of him, set in her certainty about who he was, and that only started to crack when he trusted her with the truth. I think her feelings began taking root when he came back for her and jumped into the bear pit.
If you asked Brienne when she fell for Jaime, I think sheād say it was the moment she heard the sound of his feet hitting the sand. And when he gave her Oathkeeper, that is when those feelings stop being something vague and unsettled and start moving in only one direction.
Brienne is also more aware that she has feelings for him. I donāt think she recognizes sheās in love yet - she has a long way to go in letting go of her distrust - but she knows Jaime means more to her than anyone else does. She is far more in tune with the shape of her own attachment than Jaime is with his.
So thatās how I see them as of right now. Jaime is bottling everything up, he is walking around full of feelings he refuses to examine even as they keep leaking out of him and sneaking up on him at every turn. Brienne is processing it, slowly reaching her conclusion, because sheās a bit more emotionally healthy in that regard. I do think Lady Stoneheart will be the catalyst for them. The thing that forces both of them to confront what they mean to one another. For Brienne, itāll be a gentle slap, just to name what she already deep down knows. For Jaime, itāll be a punch-in-the-face, kick-in-the-stomach kind of moment.
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