How do you think Jaime will forgive Brienne for betraying him? (If the survive LS) He's never given his trust to anyone but Cersei (and even then not completely re. Aerys) and for someone who's had a complicated relationship with lies it's a big deal that he's placed his trust in Brienne. How do you think that confrontation/conversation between them will go?
Brienne (crying): “I’m sorry I lied to you and walked you into a trap. But Pod…”
Jaime: “I understand.”
(but in a GRRM way)
See, if there’s anyone who understands the struggle of having conflicting loyalties and being forced to choose between two oaths, that’s Jaime.
He is fucked up, but even he understands that a true knight—like he knows Brienne is—would and SHOULD choose saving the lives of two innocents over his immoral, incestuous, child-defenestrating ass.
Like it’s totally possible that he feels hurt and betrayed and angry or and that it turns into a source of angst for a short while, but here’s what people routinely miss about this storyline: the LSH ordeal isn’t about Jaime—it’s about BRIENNE. It’s about her character development, not Jaime’s. It’s about making her see how complicated sticking to “honor” and “vows” is, and feel on a gut, personal level the dilemma Jaime faced at 17 when he had to choose between being a good kingsguard and let his sire blow the entire city up, and overcome her own still rather black and white thinking, and give her a reason to feel ~soiled~ and not 100% morally righteous. It’s about giving Brienne even more moral complexity AND bringing her and Jaime CLOSER, not set them apart.
People like to think Jaime goes berserk over Brienne’s “betrayal” because they need a reason for him to separate from her and go back to Cersei to do the thing everyone is convinced he will do. But that’s backwards reasoning. Jaime has more reasons to sympathize with Brienne’s choice than he has to be mad at her, and his being mad at Cersei is a completely different thing, because Cersei’s is a completely different sort of betrayal.
Different anon. What do you mean about the marriage symbols in Brienne's chapters? I didn't see any?
In the mêlée at Bitterbridge she had sought out her suitors and battered them one by one, Farrow and Ambrose and Bushy, Mark Mullendore and Raymond Nayland and Will the Stork. She had ridden over Harry Sawyer and broken Robin Potter’s helm, giving him a nasty scar. And when the last of them had fallen, the Mother had delivered Connington to her. This time Ser Ronnet held a sword and not a rose. Every blow she dealt him was sweeter than a kiss.Loras Tyrell had been the last to face her wroth that day. He’d never courted her, had hardly looked at her at all, but he bore three golden roses on his shield that day, and Brienne hated roses. The sight of them had given her a furious strength. She went to sleep dreaming of the fight they’d had, and of Ser Jaime fastening a rainbow cloak about her shoulders.
She was dressed in silk brocade, a quartered gown of blue and red decorated with golden suns and silver crescent moons. On another girl it might have been a pretty gown, but not on her. She was twelve, ungainly and uncomfortable, waiting to meet the young knight her father had arranged for her to marry, a boy six years her senior, sure to be a famous champion one day. She dreaded his arrival. Her bosom was too small, her hands and feet too big. Her hair kept sticking up, and there was a pimple nestled in the fold beside her nose. “He will bring a rose for you,” her father promised her, but a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the girl. I have to find his honor.Finally the doors opened, and her betrothed strode into her father’s hall. She tried to greet him as she had been instructed, only to have blood come pouring from her mouth. She had bitten her tongue off as she waited. She spat it at the young knight’s feet, and saw the disgust on his face. “Brienne the Beauty,” he said in a mocking tone. “I have seen sows more beautiful than you.” He tossed the rose in her face. As he walked away, the griffins on his cloak rippled and blurred and changed to lions. Jaime! she wanted to cry. Jaime, come back for me! But her tongue lay on the floor by the rose, drowned in blood.Brienne woke suddenly, gasping.
Let’s unpack this.
Brienne was betrothed three times.
The first time she was a child, but the boy she was betrothed to died of fever.
The second time she was thirteen and Ronnet Connington was six years her senior. When he came to see her, he insulted her looks, tossed a rose at her and told her it was the only thing she would have gotten from him.
Her third and last suitor, a ser Humphrey Wagstaff, told her she would have to learn how to behave as a proper lady. So Brienne challenged him to duel, telling him she would only accept such demands from a man who could beat her in combat. He couldn’t. And the betrothal was broken.
When Brienne was in Renly’s camp, Hyle Hunt and some other guys made a wager to get her maidenhead, and started wooing her (aka lowkey harassing her). Though Brienne knew it was all a game, a mockery, it still hurt. (because deep down Brienne wants to experience this romance stuff for real, from a man who really means it, and who is not gross to her.)
later on, in the melee at Bitterbridge where she won her rainbow cloak, she beat them all. She also beat Loras, who didn’t take part to the wager (but had three roses on his shield and Brienne hates roses because Red Ronnet but also because obviously Loras had Renly’s love, which Brienne would never have).
this establishes a pattern in which we have Brienne beat in combat potential lovers (husbands) who don’t deserve her (reflected in their inability to keep up with her superior strength and martial skills) and keep her maidenhead intact over and over again. This is (in large part) because of the trauma Red Ronnet inflicted on her when she was thirteen, that made her decide she will not be humiliated again and fight anyone who dares to ask for her hand.
the rose Red Ronnet tosses at her is an OBVIOUS homage to beauty and the beast, but wonderfully subverted: Brienne’s “offense” is being too ugly and witch!Ronnet “curses” her by making her forever insecure about her appearance and completely destroying her trust in men to the point that she won’t accept to be betrothed OR courted by anyone EVER AGAIN. Like the Beast is forced to hide in his castle, in sadness and isolation, Brienne is forced to build “a fortress inside herself” and hide behind it.
… until someone unexpected comes and breaks the curse.
Remember the part about Brienne beating her suitors? Fast forward to ASOS:
Steel met steel with a ringing, bone-jarring clang. Somehow Brienne had gotten her own blade out in time. Jaime laughed. “Very good, wench.” “Give me the sword, Kingslayer.” “Oh, I will.” He sprang to his feet and drove at her, the longsword alive in his hands. Brienne jumped back, parrying, but he followed, pressing the attack. No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime’s blood was singing. This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke. And with my wrists chained together, the wench may even give me a contest for a time. His chains forced him to use a two-handed grip, though of course the weight and reach were less than if the blade had been a true two-handed greatsword, but what did it matter? His cousin’s sword was long enough to write an end to this Brienne of Tarth. High, low, overhand, he rained down steel upon her. Left, right, backslash, swinging so hard that sparks flew when the swords came together, upswing, sideslash, overhand, always attacking, moving into her, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster… until, breathless, he stepped back and let the point of the sword fall to the ground, giving her a moment of respite. “Not half bad,” he acknowledged. “For a wench.”She took a slow deep breath, her eyes watching him warily. “I would not hurt you, Kingslayer.” “As if you could.” He whirled the blade back up above his head and flew at her again, chains rattling.
Jaime could not have said how long he pressed the attack. It might have been minutes or it might have been hours; time slept when swords woke. He drove her away from his cousin’s corpse, drove her across the road, drove her into the trees. She stumbled once on a root she never saw, and for a moment he thought she was done, but she went to one knee instead of falling, and never lost a beat. Her sword leapt up to block a downcut that would have opened her from shoulder to groin, and then she cut at him, again and again, fighting her way back to her feet stroke by stroke. The dance went on. He pinned her against an oak, cursed as she slipped away, followed her through a shallow brook half-choked with fallen leaves. Steel rang, steel sang, steel screamed and sparked and scraped, and the woman started grunting like a sow at every crash, yet somehow he could not reach her. It was as if she had an iron cage around her that stopped every blow. “Not bad at all,” he said when he paused for a second to catch his breath, circling to her right. “For a wench?” “For a squire, say. A green one.” He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh. “Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”
(look at all the sexual innuendos and strangely flirtatious language here and all the chasing around and slipping away and tell me if it doesn’t sound like sexual foreplay.)
JAIME IS BRIENNE’S MATCH. Jaime is the worthy adversary that could (and probably would) beat her (thus, unknowingly earning his right to claim her as his bride) if he hadn’t spent the last months in captivity and if his hands weren’t chained together:
You’re a virgin, I take it? Childhood must have been awful for you. Were you a foot taller than all the boys? They laughed at you, called you names? Some boys like a challenge. One or two must have tried to get inside big Brienne. But you fought them off. Maybe you wished one of them could overpower you, fling you down, tear off your clothes. But none of them were strong enough. I’m strong enough.
(show!Jaime, making this concept REALLY EXPLICIT in 2x10)
But Brienne is Jaime’s match, too:
Grunting, she came at him, blade whirling, and suddenly it was Jaime struggling to keep steel from skin. One of her slashes raked across his brow, and blood ran down into his right eye. The Others take her, and Riverrun as well! His skills had gone to rust and rot in that bloody dungeon, and the chains were no great help either. His eye closed, his shoulders were going numb from the jarring they’d taken, and his wrists ached from the weight of chains, manacles, and sword. His longsword grew heavier with every blow, and Jaime knew he was not swinging it as quickly as he’d done earlier, nor raising it as high. She is stronger than I am. The realization chilled him. Robert had been stronger than him, to be sure. The White Bull Gerold Hightower as well, in his heyday, and Ser Arthur Dayne. Amongst the living, Greatjon Umber was stronger, Strongboar of Crakehall most likely, both Cleganes for a certainty. The Mountain’s strength was like nothing human. It did not matter. With speed and skill, Jaime could beat them all. But this was a woman. A huge cow of a woman, to be sure, but even so… by rights, she should be the one wearing down. Instead she forced him back into the brook again, shouting, “Yield! Throw down the sword!”
Then Jaime does something:
A slick stone turned under Jaime’s foot. As he felt himself falling, he twisted the mischance into a ping lunge. His point scraped past her parry and bit into her upper thigh. A red flower blossomed, and Jaime had an instant to savor the sight of her blood before his knee slammed into a rock.
Jaime wounds Brienne (in her upper thigh, with “his point”, lmao) and “a red flower blossomed” which is a shameless allusion to deflowering (combined with “savor the sight of her blood”… see also Barbrey Dustin’s “I still remember the look of my maiden’s blood on his cock the night he claimed me. I think Brandon liked the sight as well. A bloody sword is a beautiful thing, yes”).
Then they keep rolling and “kicking and punching until finally she was sitting astride him” (WHAT) and it gets really violent from here and Brienne slams Jaime hard underwater and yells him to yield or she’ll drown him, but it doesn’t matter because Jaime has already metaphorically claimed Brienne’s maidenhead: he made her bleed.
And, important, the fight doesn’t end with a clear-cut winner, because they’re interrupted by the Bloody Mummers. And that’s when the sexual / wedding night metaphors stop being subtext and become TEXT:
Brienne lurched to her feet. She was all mud and blood below the waist, her clothing askew, her face red. She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting. Jaime crawled over the rocks to shallow water, wiping the blood from his eye with his chained hands. Armed men lined both sides of the brook. Small wonder, we were making enough noise to wake a dragon. “Well met, friends,” he called to them amiably. “My pardons if I disturbed you. You caught me chastising my wife.”
(thanks, Jaime)
Now consider:
Brienne nursing and cleaning Jaime after he is maimed (the kind of intimacy you would expect from a married couple)
Brienne and Jaime being naked together in the bathtub scene (and Jaime popping a boner after stealing a glimpse of Brienne’s pubic hair)
the Oathkeeper scene, in which they act all awkward and compliment each other like a newly wed couple in honeymoon (“Blue is a good color on you, my lady. It goes well with your eyes” and “You look…” “…Different?”) and then Jaime gives Brienne his invaluable sword
aside from the obvious sexual metaphor, the sword is a symbolically charged object: it represents the very heart and soul of a warrior, so giving your sword to someone is like giving a piece of you. And sharing the same sword (like Jaime and Brienne share Oathkeeper) is like sharing one soul. From this meta (which I recommend reading because it explains a lot of the stuff I’m trying to get at and much more):
“the ‘soul trapped in a sword’ idea is a frequent trope in myth and fiction for this very reason. Swords are never given away lightly. Think of the reverence of a knighting ceremony or why we kneel whenever a ceremonial blade is presented to someone or why Samurai’s are dishonored should they be parted from their swords. Think of why oaths sworn on a blade are considered very serious. You are swearing on your own soul.Swords are often present during wedding ceremonies among the nobility whereupon the wife sometimes kisses her husband’s blade and her husband swears his loyalty to his wife on his sword. There is also the custom of the sword and bride ceremony to consider, wherein the bridegroom’s sword takes his place in his absence. Or why a man’s sword is always brought back to his widow should he die. Or why a knight like a member of the Kings Guard or a knight of the Faith pledging service to his lord on his blade is seen as a kind of marriage ceremony. Because swords represent UNIONS. You pledge to take no other duty beyond your lord’s wishes, much like a husband and wife pledge their duty to no other. You are bound, body and spirit, in your oath to one another—on the sword shared between you.” [desidangerous]
remember how the cloaking ceremony in the westerosi wedding ritual symbolizes the man taking the bride under his protection?
in the show, Jaime gave Brienne a full body armor
so Brienne is now walking around literally cloaked in Jaime’s steel and with his sword at her side.
All of the above is merged together in the two dreams I quoted at the beginning of this post.
in the first quote she dreams of Jaime in Renly’s place, “fastening a rainbow cloak about her shoulders”. The rainbow cloak is obviously Renly’s kingsguard cloak, but this sounds a lot like a wedding ceremony, too. Especially considering Brienne’s romantic feelings for Renly.
in the second quote she dreams of Red Ronnet, the suitor who rejected her so cruelly, which proves how that failed betrothal still haunts her—not because she cared for Ronnet in particular but because Brienne is a romantic and was even more so at 13 and Ronnet destroyed her hope of having, eventually, a happily ever after with someone who loves her.
Then suddenly Ronnet changes into Jaime as he walks away from her and she’s starts to desperately scream for him and wakes up.
This shows how Brienne already subconsciously associates Jaime with marriage, but has internalized so much insecurity that even in her dreams Jaime rejects her.
Which is why “a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the girl. I have to find his honor”: Brienne thinks the only way she can make Jaime “come back for her” is to be a good knight for him. Keep her promise and find his honor. Since romance (the rose) was tossed in her face and used to hurt and humiliate her, she will only care for swords, because swords she can handle; she’s good at it. I think this quote wonderfully depicts Brienne’s complex vulnerability and how she still longs for something she claims she doesn’t care for, while also being completely and sincerely committed to the True Knight persona she chose to embody.
oh, and of course, “the Kingslayer’s whore”.
and Hyle Hunt, who represents Brienne’s chance for… I guess normalcy, in the form of a married life with someone who isn’t her One True Love, but is somewhat decent enough to form a family with. Something that she’s probably going to consider for a while and reject, but whose lesson is “yes, marriage can be an option for you if you want it to be”.
This could be just foreshadowing of Brienne’s romantic feelings for Jaime, but the recurring theme of Brienne’s suitors / broken betrothals, her virginity, her absolute certainty that she will never get married, and her being house Tarth’s only heir makes me think marriage is a central theme in her arc that will come to a resolution one way or another.
To conclude this long ass meta (and I didn’t even discuss Jaime’s weirwood dream, lol), there’s also the fact that Brienne spends some time in the Quiet Isle, which significantly doesn’t allow men and women to sleep under the same roof unless they’re married. Seems a pretty random piece of information to give away in a Brienne chapter… unless it will become relevant again in some future (post Lady Stoneheart) scenario, either in a “pretend to be married to avoid being separated for the night” or in a “let’s actually get married because we might not survive the night” way.
Regarding the post-LSH confrontation, do you think is it possible that Jaime might turn briefly back to self-loathing? Like "oh yeah of course she chose the others, I'm the Kingslayer I don't deserve better". I feel like this would be a good catalyst for a love realization/declaration
Jaime never actually hopped off the self loathing train, so I can totally see it happening.
Re: the effects of LSH on Jaime’s character specifically, I think the whole incident will force him to confront what he did to Bran in a serious way. So far he’s always justified it to himself and kind of shrugged it off in his internal monologue. He doesn’t think about it. But going through what will probably be a traumatic trial in which he’s forced to confront the creature grief and many, many injustices turned Catelyn Stark into, and his own affiliation with the people who orchestrated the atrocity that was the Red Wedding, and the fact that he inflicted the first blow on Catelyn and house Stark by pushing Bran and crippling him (and it was all a domino effect from that)… I think it will be somewhat of an eye opener for Jaime.
And while Jaime is having this emotional and hopefully ~ moral ~ freakout, Brienne is also freaking out, dealing with her own crippling guilt even though she knows she did the right thing but her heart tells her otherwise (whether or not Brienne has a plan, she’ll be angst-filled I think), and reeling from the aftershocks of watching the man she just realized she loves nearly die. I almost wonder if Jaime will go as far as blaming her for putting herself in danger and risking her life for him, wretched hopeless cripple that he is. In any case I’m sure their post-LSH conversations and interactions are going to be pivotal. I’m hoping for something as strong and dynamic-changing as the bathtub scene.
In the books Jaime goes himself to fulfill his oath to Catelyn. But, in S6 when Brienne goes to the Riverlands and reminds him what his father has done to Robb and Catelyn he says "exactly" and he reminds her that Sansa is a suspect in Joffery's murder. What does that make him? Brienne named the sword oathkeeper for him but show!Jaime didn't keep his oath, he stands proudly with the killing of Catelyn and insinuate Sansa should be put on trial.
1. While “in the books Jaime goes himself to fulfill his oath to Catelyn” (I assume you’re referring to his disappearing with Brienne in ADWD), the context is very different. In the books, Sansa is still considered a fugitive and Brienne claims the Hound has her (which is bullshit but Jaime doesn’t know); and he has already dealt with Riverrun anyway. In the show, Sansa is no longer a fugitive, she’s successfully reunited with her brother and is now planning to retake Winterfell, which would be a political disaster for the Lannister regime. Book!Brienne showed up asking Jaime to help her save Catelyn’s daughter from the brute who kidnapped her, show!Brienne asked him to be complicit in something that would result in the Starks taking Winterfell back. You see, the latter has a lot more political and strategic weight. Brienne finds a way to circumvent this by offering to convince the Blackfish to leave Riverrun behind, so Jaime would technically fulfill his mission. A win-win for both of them, to which he agrees. But it didn’t work out.
2. Book!Jaime believes that Sansa was responsible for Joffrey’s murder, too.
Brienne looked at him. “You do not believe [Tyrion] did it.”Jaime gave her a hard smile. “See, wench? We know each other too well. Tyrion’s wanted to be me since he took his first step, but he’d never follow me in kingslaying. Sansa Stark killed Joffrey. My brother’s kept silent to protect her. He gets these fits of gallantry from time to time. The last one cost him a nose. This time it will mean his head.”
And yet,
“You say Sansa killed him. Why protect her?”Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei’s cunt. And because he deserved to die. “I have made kings and unmade them. Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor.” Jaime smiled thinly. “Besides, kingslayers should band together.”
he gives Brienne Oathkeeper all the same, so it’s clear that even if he believes Sansa murdered his son or had a hand in his death, he doesn’t resent her for that. This is true for the show as well.
Now looking at the JxB dialogue in 6x08, I disagree that Jaime “stands proudly with the killing of Catelyn and insinuate Sansa should be put on trial”.
I think everything he said and the way he said it was to remind Brienne that they’re on opposite sides of a war, that there’s nothing he can do about it because he’s sworn to Cersei, and that it’s dangerous for Brienne to even be there since she’s sworn to the person that Cersei believes killed her beloved son:
-Of course, my sister wants Sansa dead. The girl is still a suspect in Joffrey’s murder, so there is that… complication. What the hell are you doing here? -I’ve come for the Blackfish. -You’re welcome to have him. -Lady Sansa desires to take her ancestral seat back from the Boltons and assume her rightful position as Lady of Winterfell. -With what army does she plan on taking Winterfell? -The Tully army. -They’re a bit occupied at the moment. I was sent here to reclaim Riverrun currently defended by the Tully rebels, so you can see the conundrum. -The Tullys are rebels because they’re fighting for their home? -Riverrun was granted to the Freys by royal decree. -As a reward for betraying Robb Stark and slaughtering his family!-Exactly. We shouldn’t argue about politics.
And then, “I’m a Lannister. Don’t ask me to betray my own house.”
And later, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” (fight against each other)
At this point, show!Jaime still believes his place is at Cersei’s side and his only job is to protect the crown and house Lannister whether he likes Cersei’s rule or not. So he is basically saying: the fracture between the Lannisters and the Starks/Tullys is too deep. The Blackfish will never leave Riverrun, not even to help his own niece, because he wants justice for the Red Wedding. Cersei will never accept that I make a deal with someone who is on Sansa’s side, because she wants justice for Joffrey’s murder. The longer you stay here, asking for things I can’t give (lifting the siege of Riverrun to allow the Tully garrison to go North undisturbed and join the rebellious Stark army would be treason), the more likely it gets that I end up having to fight against you.
If you consider Nikolaj’s delivery, you’ll see that he’s literally oozing bitterness—not towards Brienne, but towards the situation that forces him to disappoint the one person who believes in his honor. It’s the same bitterness he displays at the end of the Dragonpit meeting after Cersei rejected the truce—for a second, he thought he and Brienne could be on the same side in a war at last, but Jon’s untimely outburst of honesty ruined it all. (which is why he calls him “dolt”).
Now that GRRM has confirmed the Jaime/ Brienne BatB parallels, do you think it undermines the idea that SanSan is also a play on the BatB trope? I guess there's no reason BatB can't apply to both ships, but it doesn't strike me as GRRM's style to use the same trope for two different couples in the same series, not to mention it seems like overkill.
No, it definitely does not undermine the (obvious) BatB vibes in Sansan. There’s actually plenty of recurring tropes/themes in asoiaf. See: the princess in the tower in Sansa, Arianne, Lyanna, Val, Asha; the ubiquitous identity themes & hero’s journeys; the beautiful/innocent inside gets disfigured outside (Brienne, Tyrion, baby!Sandor, Myrcella, Jeyne Poole…); the Heroic Leap (Jaime in the bearpit to save Brienne/Theon from Winterfell’s walls to save Jeyne); the star crossed lovers/Lancelot and Guinevere archetype, to be found in various degrees of deconstruction/subversion in Jaime/Cersei, Rhaegar/Lyanna, Arianne/Arys, Aemon the Dragonknight/Naerys, etc. etc. etc.); the Doomed Love Triangle (Elia/Rhaegar/Lyanna, Cersei/Jaime/Brienne, Littlefinger/Catelyn/Brandon-and-later-Ned), and, related, the Unrequited Love (Brienne/Renly, Littlefinger/Catelyn, Lysa/Littlefinger, Barristan/Ashara, Quentyn/Dany, Jorah/Dany…); the princess & the poor (Arya/Gendry, Dunk/Rohanne, Arianne/Daemon, gender-reversed in Jon/Ygritte (the bastard prince and the wildling?), Tyrion/Tysha, Tyrion/Shae), the “in love with a ghost” (Robert/Lyanna, Brienne/Renly, Jon/Ygritte)… and many more.
It’s no mystery that GRRM loves beauty and the beast, and I think he shapes several narratives and pairings around different aspects of it. Sansan is a relatively straightforward embodiment of the trope, whereas Jaime/Brienne has several layers of subversion (at first glance it’s a gender reversal, except the inner beauty doesn’t match the outer beauty, so Brienne is both the Beast and the Beauty, and so is Jaime). But there are traces of BatB in other dynamics too, such as Tyrion/Shae, Tyrion/Sansa, Dany/Jorah, Dany/Drogo, Theon/Jeyne. There’s a whole song for this trope (The Bear and the Maiden Fair), and I would argue we’re even getting a nightmarish variant—more on the *bride of the monstrous* side—in Cersei/Ungregor…
so, no. It’s not overkill. Nobody puts different spins on the same old 6 tropes like Westeros Georg :)
Hi! I really enjoy your asoiaf m/eta - I was wondering, do you think that Jaime is on his best way to become Tywins "true heir", a scenario in which Brienne has a role similar to Joanna's? I.e. Jaime's genuine affection for her becomes his only sympathetic quality in the end, much like Tywin's genuine love for his wife appears to have been is only truly likable trait? Not to reduce Brienne (or Joanna) to that alone, but it would emphasize Jaime's doom and her rise nicely.
Hi, thank you! A couple things first, before I sink my teeth into the rest:
a) this is in no way an objective statement, but no matter how his arc ends, even if it goes the darkest way possible, Jaime has plenty of sympathetic traits (not necessarily qualities, mind) that allow me to find him relatable, and this makes him ALREADY incomparable with Tywin;
b) I don’t believe in love being a sympathetic quality or a mitigating factor per se, and I don’t think people who love are necessarily one step closer to *goodness* than people who don’t. For example, while I don’t see Stannis as necessarily incapable of love—I quite like the idea that under his stern facade there’s a lot of feelings, for his child, for Jon, for Davos, and maybe even for Melisandre, on top of his complex issues with his own brothers—even if we stick to the interpretation of Stannis as a loveless character, I don’t think this diminishes his fundamental goodness. On the other hand, there are the Lannisters, who are fifty shades of questionable, but they ALLL love so much!
The truth is that anyone can feel love. It’s not that special, you know? It’s just a human emotion—powerful, but not inherently moral. Not intrinsically a virtue, an end to be pursued at all costs, in itself and for itself, as traditional romantic narratives would want you to believe.
This is particularly true for a character like Jaime, who has been established as a lover since his first notable appearance in the books.
“The things I do for love (he said with loathing)” is probably his most iconic line, and it’s no coincidence that it’s associated to the TERRIBLEST, EVILEST THING he’s ever done (no irony). Jaime's debut in asoiaf is tied to the concept that lovers aren’t ALWAYS right just because they love, and to some extent the character himself is aware of it ("loathing” refers not to Bran, whom Jaime has really no reason to loathe lol, but to “the things I do”, aka the repulsive action he’s about to commit in the name of his love for Cersei). So the idea that Jaime’s ~one and only~ sympathetic quality can be his love for Brienne, when loving is both his original sin and virtually the only thing he’s done in his life, doesn’t work for me. (you might argue: but Jaime’s love for Cersei is incestuous and Badwrong, and Cersei herself is Bad whereas Brienne is Good! yeah, I think that line of reasoning is a slippery slope, because it places all the emphasis and the responsibility on who you love rather than how you love, as if the moral fiber and ~appropriateness~ of the object of your love is what makes your love noble. Mind, this is a very courtly-romance logic, so it’s nothing especially offensive, but I still don’t like its implications. It runs a bit too close to “bad people don’t deserve to be loved” to suit me).
with that said…
denying the centrality of love in these novels would be a terrible mistake. George is a romantic, and his attitude towards some romantic tropes isn’t deconstructionist at all, but rather a vibrant (albeit complex) celebration of them. Yet not all fictional depictions of romantic love are equal: I think Jaime/Brienne and Tywin/Joanna belong to two different genres.
Jaime/Brienne is essentially a fairytale. It’s, of course, Beauty and the Beast. A tale about transformative love—love as acceptance of the other, love as understanding of the other, love as healing, love as the driving force for a radical viewpoint shift, a change of attitude and lifestyle (symbolized in the original tale by the physical metamorphosis of the Beast), love as having an actual positive impact on the world. As everyone knows, Martin loves the trope and makes it integral, more or less subtly, to several dynamics throughout the books. It has been stated repeatedly, even by the author himself, that Jaime and Brienne is one of those; the only question is whether there will be a subversion, and to which degree. Personally I’ve always seen as subversive the way GRRM gets rid of the problematic goodness = beauty equation (that exists in the original because fairytales are highly archetypal and symbolic and they rely heavily on simple visual associations, but they’re also inevitably intertwined with societal/cultural biases and the primordial fear of the imperfect and the deviant) and throws in the mix a Beauty who is actually Super Ugly! and a Beast who is a splendid, glorious, golden lion. When the Beauty is the Beast and the Beast is the Beauty, and the gender stereotypes inherent to the trope are repeatedly broken, the metamorphosis is necessarily mutual.
Can this fairytale have a tragic ending? Absolutely. Martin is a master at this—it’s actually what his deconstruction is about, taking fantasy/fairytale tropes and adapting them to completely different genres, causing that sort of cognitive dissonance in the reader, who isn’t used to see THAT trope take THAT form (see: “Martin kills all the heroes!”). However, whatever the deconstruction at work is in JB’s case, i doubt it will end up completely negating the transformative nature of the trope itself. But let’s set this aside for now, because it’s not relevant to the discussion.
Tywin/Joanna is different in genre, scope, meaning, basic tropes. To begin with, I don’t see Joanna as the Beauty to Tywin’s Beast. There’s no clash between two conflicting worldviews here; their love isn’t of the transformative kind, it’s a love that cemented their established identity, rather than challenge it. I think this pairing is written around a completely different cluster of tropes—the power couple, the “behind a powerful man there’s always a powerful woman”, and the dead mother/wife. I like to think of Joanna’s death as transformative in the sense that it represents the loss of the feminine---it creates an unbalance in an already awfully masculine-coded family, whose aftershocks still affect the lives of all her children even decades later. In short, Tywin/Joanna is a tragedy.
(seriously: if you’re looking for a parallel to Tywin/Joanna in Jaime’s narrative, a “humanizing the monster” kind of love, look no further than Jaime/Cersei. Jaime’s love for Cersei humanizes him, and Cersei’s love for Jaime (and her children) humanizes her. Unfortunately, the narrative makes it clear that theirs is a (figuratively) sterile, doomed kind of love. Like in a greek tragedy, we feel sympathy as we clutch our chests in anticipation for its inevitable collapse. Fate did to Tywin/Joanna what a downward spiral of irreconcilable differences, deep-seated grudges and destructive actions did to Jaime/Cersei, but the end point is equally tragic.)
Also: Jaime’s BATB dynamic with Brienne is not a “sympathetic” footnote squeezed in between his villain arc A and villain arc B, nor something that can be reduced to “his only likable trait” and waved off. It’s a crucial aspect of his arc (and Brienne’s, who is—let’s not forget—a major player from AFFC on) and has ramifications on the overall plot (Oathkeeper, sending Brienne after Sansa, Lady Stoneheart, not to mention the discussion around honor and oaths that is a central theme in asoiaf). It’s not a coincidence that Jaime is introduced as a pov only after he meets Brienne. This dynamic is integral to the story George is telling.
In comparison, Joanna (and by extension Tywin/Joanna) is something that belongs to the past, and only affects our story indirectly. It’s a dead character and a dead relationship. And that’s what marks the biggest differences, not only with Jaime/Brienne but also with Jaime/Cersei. Joanna, in the context of the narrative, is remarkable for her ABSENCE. It’s her death, the void that she created much more than her life, that has an impact on the characters. It doesn’t help that Tywin, the one person who’s able to remember her as a fully fledged human being, isn’t a pov either. GRRM gives us only scraps, and it’s up to those of us who care to put together the pieces of the puzzle of who Joanna used to be. This is, of course, a despicably convenient treatment of a female character on the author’s part, even more despicable since it’s not an isolate case in asoiaf. There’s no easier way than a dead mother to fabricate a sad background for your protagonist, and it also solves the problem of making her fit within the narrative, giving her an actual personality and things to do, etc. We expect better from a writer of Martin’s calibre, and that’s where the criticism comes from.
But lazy sexist writing aside, why does George give us so little?
I think it’s (in no small part) because he understands the power of certain romantic tropes, how they seduce the reader’s imagination—how humanizing they are. Tywin’s love for Joanna and Joanna’s love for Tywin, if explored in depth, would humanize Tywin to the nth degree.
But Tywin isn’t supposed to be given the sympathetic treatment. Of course, GRRM knows better than make him a cardboard villain, so he gives him nuance, he gives him contradictions, among which there’s a dead wife he loved fiercely. But he doesn’t flesh it out. He doesn’t give us a detailed story, only scattered bits and pieces, generally second and third hand information. This relationship isn’t made for the stage but for behind the curtains, because Tywin’s ~feelings~ need to remain veiled and largely inaccessible to us, just as his inner monologue is: we aren’t supposed to sympathize.
Jaime, on the other hand? Jaime gets a pov and TWO romantic relationships fleshed out in depth, one of which is a BATB dynamic with a heroine. His heart is on stage for everyone to see in a way Tywin’s heart isn’t—cannot be. I think it’s essential to recognize that Jaime and Tywin occupy different spaces in the narrative, and their potential to be seen as sympathetic characters is largely different. It’s hard for me not to see authorial intent in the way Jaime is perceived VS how Tywin is perceived.
This brings me to the other question you raised, if Jaime is on his way to become Tywin’s true heir. I can only try to answer this is by looking at what motivates him, at what could be a significant and satisfying resolution of the issues his character raises.
Jaime never cared for power but, like every Lannister, he strives for greatness. Now that that greatness is unachievable through his swordfighting skills, he’s looking in other directions, other possible fields to excel in. One of those is certainly Tywin: family. The other is knighthood: his other family. Both failed him, and he failed them both. The way Jaime failed knighthood is obvious to everyone, but the way he failed his ~responsibility~ towards house Lannister is subtler: by trading his birthright for a place at Cersei’s side, he basically washed his hands clean, giving Tywin free rein to further hate and abuse Tyrion in an escalation of desperate and delusional attempts to avert the latter’s ascension as heir to Casterly Rock, that climaxed with Tyrion being accused of regicide and Tywin’s death. There’s a great image in Jaime’s narrative, of the crimson and gold Lannister sigil VS the white shield of the kingsguard, but the real question isn’t which one Jaime will eventually /choose/... it’s whether he’ll ever realize he can be NEITHER.
The great lion of Lannister? That’s Tyrion. Every attempt to turn the clock back is futile. The Rock is Tyrion’s by right since the moment Jaime chose to step back and join the Kingsguard for life.
And the white shield… is Brienne. It’s always been her.
a scenario in which Brienne has a role similar to Joanna’s […] would emphasize Jaime’s doom and her rise nicely
But is Jaime Tywin in this scenario, or is he Joanna?
Because Joanna died so that Tywin could rise as the character we all know (once again, I side-eye the idea of Joanna being Tywin’s “conscience” or her death being his ~villain origin story~, but it certainly made him more unbalanced). For the parallel to work, Brienne has to die for Jaime to rise (as a true villain, as his father’s heir, as Cersei’s valonqar, whatever), which has been speculated, and which I’m aggressively AGAINST. Because Brienne is the next generation, Brienne is a character who can have a REAL positive impact on the world, while Jaime… let’s be real, Jaime is a relic. He’s a relic of Robert’s rebellion, of a time that doesn’t exist anymore. The “Greatness” ship has sailed for him long ago:
he’s never going to do anything as remarkable and controversial as murdering Aerys (oh sure, there’s Cersei, but I wouldn’t consider killing her an accomplishment. A mediocre rehash of his one and only teenage hit, at best)
he’s never going to be Arthur Dayne, either. Who the fuck wants to be Arthur Dayne anyway? That guy kept a pregnant girl prisoner. Being THAT guy would be only a regression for Jaime. He understood that there are orders you can’t follow at seventeen, why should he revert to performing his duty uncritically at thirty-five?
oh, and of course, he’s not going to outmatch Tywin. DUH, he’s TRYING, but it isn’t a primary concern or a central motivation for him the way it is for Cersei, for example. Everything he accomplishes in his military campaign in the Riverlands, he does only because people fear Tywin’s shadow, not his own. We can talk until next week about whether the trebuchet threat crowns him as Tywin’s true successor, or is actually a strategy more similar to the way Jon and Dany (and Ned) use their enemies’ children to maintain THEIR peace terms (which are fair and righteous whereas Jaime’s aren’t, and that makes all the difference of the world, or not, ymmv!), but what really matters is how his military campaign ends: he dumps garrison, orders and all without a note as soon as girlfriend shows up with a missing cheek and a quest to fulfill. It’s not that he lacks the intelligence or the ferocity to follow Tywin’s steps—he lacks the resolve. He lacks the commitment, because he’s always, perpetually, split in two.
I think it’s that split, and his ultimately futile attempts to become great at one thing or the other when BOTH are no longer available for him, that is the central obstacle that Jaime needs to overcome. Because Jaime wants Honor and Glory, but you know what Honor and Glory are?
Two horses.
Enter the valonqar impasse, and a lot of speculation on Jaime focuses on how he will ~choose violence~. He’ll drop all pretenses of honor, forget about Goldenhand the Just, (optionally) embrace his role as a Lannister commander and dig his own grave in a pointless, doomed last stand to hold Casterly Rock from Tyrion’s attack, and when it falls, kill Cersei and himself. And to be honest, a lot of this sounds plausible enough—I think it’s almost a given that at some point he goes back to Casterly Rock, has a last confrontation with Tyrion, and yeah, likely kills Cersei.
But it’s a tad too close to Tywin’s wishes to suit me: sure, Tywin would never want Jaime to kill Cersei and commit suicide, but would he want him to defend Casterly Rock against Tyrion? Fuck yes. He’d be DELIGHTED to see Jaime step up as his ~heir~ and fight against his own paranoia of Tyrion the monster child eating the Rock from the inside just like he devoured Joanna’s life. The greatest irony about Tywin is that the kid he wanted to be his heir couldn’t be more ill-suited for the role, whereas it’s the other two—the girl and the dwarf—who deserve to claim that role for themselves. Why change that in the end? More to the point, how does Brienne factor in this? What kind of impact does she leave? Jaime’s resolve to embrace his role as the heir to Lannister does not, in any shape or form, need Brienne to happen. Nor does his choice to fight against Tyrion, or to murder Cersei. Tyrion confessed Joffrey’s murder, and the relationship with Cersei was meant to go to shit since the moment Jaime lost his hand and stopped being her perfect mirror, possibly even earlier. Remove Brienne from Jaime’s entire timeline, and you still have basically the same arc. OF COURSE, Brienne’s importance on the story doesn’t hinge on her impact on Jaime’s narrative. But I wonder what’s the point---like, structurally---of writing a BATB dynamic where transformative love is a crucial aspect, and end it with “and so they parted ways and each one continued to do the shit THEY WERE GOING TO DO ANYWAY, Brienne as the knight who believes in vows and Jaime as... whatever Jaime’s up to”. Bruh, what a waste of narrative space.
And this is where I switch to purely speculative/wish fulfillment mode, so, HANDLE WITH CAUTION, lol. I think Jaime will reject both Honor and Glory and die as the Kingslayer, as nobody’s heir, as the Lannister who lost the Rock, unredeemed… in the eyes of everyone but us, and whoever will be holding his hand in the last moment.
A few weeks ago, I went to see Logan. As I watched Wolverine sacrifice himself so that his daughter and the new generation of heroes could, well, inherit the world, so that they could have a chance for redemption when it’s too late for him, I thought, THIS, this is I want from Jaime. To die, but not before he’s pushed HIS heir forward, the person who will save the world, who will be the hero he cannot be. To “plant seeds in a garden you never get to see”. Unlike Joanna, who had no choice in this nor any idea of how important Tyrion was going to be for the world, I want it to be Jaime’s decision. This is the only way we can go back to “the things I do for love” and redeem that statement.
Because it’s that statement, even more than Jaime himself, that needs redemption. What matters isn’t the “for love” part, it’s the “do”. See, Jaime has already done something unequivocally good for love. He jumped in a bearpit and saved Brienne. So why are we still having this debate? Because, well, the scope of that action was limited to him and Brienne, to that particular circumstance, and to the relationship between them. There’s still something egotistical in saving the life of someone you care for—it’s still a “I’m doing this because you are important to ME” logic. Me, me, me. The real heroism, the real sacrifice, is renouncing to the person you love—renouncing to your “dream of spring”, so that others can have it. It’s what Brienne does, when asked “sword or noose”. It DESTROYS her, but she INSTANTLY gets that her feelings of loyalty, devotion and, yes, love for Jaime are no justification for letting two innocent people die.
AND THIS IS WHAT MAKES HER THE REAL DEAL, FOLKS.
We still have to see how Jaime receives the choice she made. Badly, some argue, he’ll be pissed and she’ll fall from grace in his eyes, because what else can the Lady Stoneheart ordeal be if not a plot device to make Jaime go finally berserk, a set up for the valonqar? But I think the whole incident is going to leave Jaime genuinely Shook (TM). Not only because he’s suddenly getting all the receipts of why he’s a bad person in his face, not only because he’ll see what his father’s brilliant military logic has done to a formerly admirable woman like Catelyn, but also because Brienne’s lesson will HURT the way TRUTH hurts. He’s a person who’s sacrificed a lot for love, thinking it was worthwhile; Brienne’s choice will prove that it’s not. That he should have sacrificed his love to do the right thing, instead.
You need to serve something greater than your own emotions. This is the most important of Brienne’s lessons, and I think there’s a possibility that Jaime actually UNDERSTANDS it, because that would be the ULTIMATE change, for him. (so powerful that it could potentially break that thrice damned prophecy, even.) To see that his feelings, desires, hopes and dreams aren’t important. It’s neither Honor nor Glory, and in the end, it’s not even Love. It’s about doing the right thing, full stop.
I realize this is very fanficcy, but boy, do I love Jaime Lannister and want his arc to end in a not completely nihilistic way. :)
We got bearpit from Jaime's pov, but do you think it would be great to have Brienne's pov? I was always curious what she thought when he said he dreamed of her :)
I think the scene works awesomely the way it’s written, because we get to see Jaime’s thought process leading to his resolve to go back to Harrenhal and his complete lack of thought process when he jumps into the pit. How Brienne feels about it… oh, I really hope GRRM expands on that, but he’s already given us some clues through her AFFC chapters, for example:
All of it came pouring out of Brienne then, like black blood from a wound; the betrayals and betrothals, Red Ronnet and his rose […], the voyage down the Trident, dueling Jaime in the woods, the Bloody Mummers, Jaime crying “Sapphires,” Jaime in the tub at Harrenhal with steam rising from his body, the taste of Vargo Hoat’s blood when she bit down on his ear, the bear pit, Jaime leaping down onto the sand, the long ride to King’s Landing, Sansa Stark, the vow she’d sworn to Jaime […].
She dreamt she was at Harrenhal, down in the bear pit once again. This time it was Biter facing her, huge and bald and maggot-white, with weeping sores upon his cheeks. Naked he came, fondling his member, gnashing his filed teeth together. Brienne fled from him. “My sword,” she called. “Oathkeeper. Please.” The watchers did not answer. Renly was there, with Nimble Dick and Catelyn Stark. Shagwell, Pyg, and Timeon had come, and the corpses from the trees with their sunken cheeks, swollen tongues, and empty eye sockets. Brienne wailed in horror at the sight of them, and Biter grabbed her arm and yanked her close and tore a chunk from her face. “Jaime,” she heard herself scream, “Jaime.”
Jaime. The name was a knife, twisting in her belly. “Lady Catelyn, I… you do not understand, Jaime… he saved me from being raped when the Bloody Mummers took us, and later he came back for me, he leapt into the bear pit empty-handed… I swear to you, he is not the man he was.”
It’s obvious that what Jaime did left a huge mark on Brienne’s mind and heart, to the point that her subconscious merges the bear with Biter and the bearpit morphs into a hellish arena in which she processes all the terrible things that happened to her, the physical as well as sexual assaults she had to endure, the actual monsters she fought, and she screams for Jaime, the only person who’s ever saved her. We might never learn what her immediate thoughts following the bearpit were, but imo back then Brienne was too shocked and confused to really register the enormity of what Jaime did—it took some time to sink in. That said, I hope we’ll read more of how she feels in Winds (fingers crossed that she’ll have more pov chapters) and that the “I dreamed of you” line will be addressed again, at least in her internal monologue.
