on jaime lannister’s mental health and what it means to you
tldr: in between this season’s beginning where I’ve seen a fair amount of ‘has jaime lost his balls with his hand’ in the jaime tag (....) and the finale after which I’ve seen a fair amount of ‘oh finally jaime grew some balls it was time’, I would like to list you a few friendly reminders in bullet list form of why jaime lannister has always had some of the strongest metaphorical and not balls in these series and why he’s always had a spine and he didn’t need to grow anyfuckingthing never mind that he didn’t lose anyfuckingthing with the hand.
in order:
jaime grew up spending all of his time with cersei until tyrion was born and it’s not like he stopped after. without going into how it might have started or not, he’s honestly convinced he’s the same person as cersei (he even said it in canon, if I was a woman I’d be cersei). growing together with someone in such a close environment would lend itself to actually be like them if they have a dominating personality (which she has). he thinks he’s her.
except that while cersei abused tyrion from the moment he was born and it’s pretty much strongly implied that she killed that friend of hers she went to talk to maggy to because she dared ask maggy if she’d marry jaime (i.e., she had basically assumed she could have him when cersei thought he was hers or no one’s), he… was… the only person in the family who actually loved tyrion (I don’t mean didn’t abuse him, I mean actually loved him) and was having daydreams of going around westeros being a knight, which is not exactly what cersei has as a life target.
then he got into the kingsguard half because he wanted to be like arthur dayne and half because cersei was like ‘if you do we can be together always’ which basically merged the two things he wanted, at fifteen
then it turned out aerys was what he was and since he was fifteen until he was seventeen he got through so much trauma (witnessing aerys raping his wife and being unable to do nothing, getting all the vows he believed in materially questioned, watching two people get burned alive) that he actually started dissociating to cope with it. dissociation is a fairly common effect of ptsd. this guy developed ptsd before he turned seventeen, and even with that he went, did the smart thing and killed aerys to save everyone, basically doing everything knightly oaths tell you not to do and count that we’re talking about a seventeen year old who dreamed of being arthur dayne hmmmmmmmmmm
then he could have actually become king, which is something cersei would have done at once, and he didn’t, even if if I was a woman I’d be cersei, which suggests me that someone in here managed to develop a distinct and definite personality who’s not cersei’s… without even realizing that he did it, or at least rationally, which should say volumes about the level of fucked up this guy is when talking mental health
then everyone got pissed at him for aerys without even bothering to ask him why which makes him reject everything he loved when it comes to knighthood and turn into the cynical bastard he was at the beginning -
ah, but let’s add that not even that long later tywin aka his father basically forced him to lie about tysha to tyrion with all the baggage we know, so his father forced him to hurt his brother whom jaime actually loves very much, to the point that later when jaime freed him (in book canon at least) he told him also because he was being eaten by guilt and I’m sure that must have been totally healthy for someone who dissociated at seventeen
and should I mention that he fathered three children and cersei never let him be in their lives, which is probably not as bad for a man as it’d be for a woman but wow, that totally doesn’t add up to the trauma
and then we’re surprised that a guy who didn’t treat any of his mental trauma for at least fourteen years if not more and who from that point on only gave a fuck about his family/his relationship with cersei which as seen above is kind of really toxic in the best of cases arrives to the point of shoving a kid out of a window to save his and her hide (ps: I’m not justifying it and even jaime knows it was shitty - the things I do for love, he said with loathing - but if we’re surprised that this is how he reacts… lol)
anyway, after that he ends up prisoner for one year, gets freed, runs into a bunch of bandits and OH WAIT THEY CUT OFF HIS RIGHT HAND WHICH IS INCIDENTALLY NECESSARY IF YOU’RE RIGHT-HANDED AND THE BEST SWORDSMAN IN THE REALM which turns into another fairly horrid trauma because hey, try losing that important a limb, having to ride it out and only having a total stranger who hated your guts until three days before helping you out and giving you a modicum of dignity during that time! because it’s totally fun to not being able to change your clothes and being given horse piss to drink, riding with your hand around your neck and so on, because that’s totally not traumatic at all, and then he goes on out of a) spite, b) brienne giving him her a+ pep talks, c) wanting to see cersei again
now, given all that, he… went back for brienne when he could have just left for KL and jumped into a bear pit for her after coming out of the above situation, having just healed, missing a hand and without even a weapon, which is totally something that someone without balls or a spine would do, wouldn’t they, same as someone without balls would have let people kick him in a healing stump to save brienne from being raped (because, addendum, he advised her to *go away inside* i.e. dissociate and she told him they could forget it)
and that’s just the first, but okay, so that sends him thinking, makes him realize he either has to be more than his sword hand or what’s the point, and the fact that he ran into a true knight TM made him realize that maybe some existed and that he kind of wanted to be like that still -
ah, yeah, and when he gets back to KL - in the book - cersei calls him a useless cripple and throws plates/cutlery at him never mind gets fairly handsy the moment he disagrees with her/doesn’t agree with her anymore, and then she tells him to get riverrun even if he doesn’t want to since he swore cat to never raise arms against the tullys
now, never mind that he managed to actually take riverrun without fighting and so on, but other than the above, since jaime lannister went through even more extensive trauma, in the books he: gave brienne oathkeeper and sent her off to save sansa therefore going against cersei’s wishes, saved tyrion when cersei wanted jaime to actually kill him, saves a serving girl no one gave a fuck about and with a reputation for being a **whore** from being raped for the umpteenth time and takes her in his service (I totally can see cersei doing that or even caring hmmm /sarcasm), tries to be as decent as he can manage, he’s one of the few povs who’s fairly open about hating what he does and about how dumb he thinks the war is being, realizes he doesn’t even want to go back to king’s landing because it’s not what he wanted, obviously gives more than a fuck about his honor and he’s fairly open about it, he incidentally defended brienne’s honor because he’s gallant like that, wanted to vomit when he was told the dude who cut off his hand ended up cannibalized (totally a dude who cares for revenge…) and when cersei asked him for help he burned the letter, which should somehow suggest he realized he’s really not her -
ah, I should probably mention that he’s also trying to relearn to fight with his left all over again instead of just giving up like a lot of people might have done -
ah, among all of this he went around advising tommen that he should go away inside aka dissociating to stand having to stand vigil next to his grandfather’s dead body when cersei’s advice was basically stop being a weakling and handle it (because an eight-year old totally would enjoy that), and cersei of course stopped his fathering there because of course what a travesty, but given that after he left cersei forced tommen to whip a servant we can absolutely see how much they’re the same person or how jaime has not, like, a personality of his own
now, jaime has also done a fair amount of reprehensible things in that time and I’m not wanting to say he’s a saint or something, because he’s not and he knows he’s done reprehensible things - he tells that to himself and everyone all the time.
also, I know that’s book canon and people in this case were discussing show canon, but point in case, while I think that the show made his development a serious disservice and didn’t lead up to him dumping cersei, they did more or less show that he’s not the same person as she is, and now we go to the crux of it. as in, but I’m honestly tired of hearing that he ‘grew balls’ on one side for leaving cersei now in the show same as I was fairly horrified when I went into his tag after the premiere and saw people going like ‘omg he lost his balls with his hand’ which is what cersei told him in the book I mean seriously, because -
this dude comes from a lifetime of emotional manipulation at best and abuse at worst, and anyway when cersei was twelve she considered him her property enough that she threw someone down a well because the poor girl dared ask maggy if she might marry him so I don’t really think it could have been healthy even in the best of cases, which was then topped by years of trauma that gave him ptsd symptoms at an age in which in my country he couldn’t drink, vote or drive a car and which caused him to kill people including his king and destroy most of his dreams and eventually topped by his father forcing him to hurt his brother who is the one relative with whom he has an actual healthy-ish relationship. and that’s not counting the huge-ass amount of trauma that came later with losing a limb that was pretty much his life/the most important for his line of work and so on, and even with all of this this guy managed to grow a fucking personality wholly different from his sister’s out of I don’t know what kind of emotional strength honestly without even realizing he wasn’t like her at all, he found it in himself to turn his life around as much as he could, he realized he didn’t want the same things as everyone else thinks he did and he’s trying to be a more decent person even if no one thinks he can be and everyone has pre-judged him already, and he’s done plenty more than decent things pre and post traumas of whichever kind.
and in the middle of all this I’d like to remind everyone again that he fathered three kids that he was never let near. I mean, if it had been a woman having three children and then being forced to never interact with them would it be chill? nah.
back to the show: so it took him a hell of a long time to leave KL. I also think it wasn’t very well paced. but for fuck’s sake, taking it at face value, this guy spent his entire life being either manipulated or subtly/not so subtly emotionally amused or going through heavy trauma, and people are surprised that it took him a hell of a long time to say fuck it and leave? (especially when cersei was also using the ‘I’m pregnant’ card but never mind, which is totally not an abusive/manipulating tactic at all - I mean, she told him the moment she suspected he was being fed up with her nonsense/craziness post-sept burning and incidentally gave him everything he wanted i.e. their relationship in the open and told him she’d have let him father the kid. aha. when she didn’t let him father the three before. totally not emotional manipulation. hmmm.) fuck’s sake, this guy has guts of steel for having even been himself i.e. someone his sister is not all along, for bad or good.
I’m not even going to go over people assuming that the moment he didn’t want to go along with cersei’s crap in the premiere/he had doubts after then he didn’t have balls anymore - so now realizing that cersei was being bonkers and having an opinion and some development he already had in spades in the book is not having balls? - but this idea that he’s only growing a spine now that he left her or that he never had it before losing the hand is just… it takes a hell of a long time to get over that kind of trauma/abuse/manipulation. he has fifteen years’ worth of untreated ptsd/trauma going on, he’s had maybe three healthy relationships just talking about the show (in the book there might be more but honest it’s not like addam marbrand or ilyn payne are significant in the way tyrion and brienne are, and in the book he’s obviously not in a good place with tyrion right now so..), where on top of that they made him watch his daughter die in front of him for who knows what ill-informed artistic decision, just after she recognized him as her father, which absolutely wouldn’t add to the trauma, wouldn’t it?
and even with all of that he… is around, functioning, doing his thing, taking his decisions, trying to be a better person as uneven as it’s being (which is normal), wanting to be a better person and wanting to follow his old dreams and like, having a personality, again. and he’s always managed to be his own person all along.
if that is not having a spine or having balls or having enormous emotional strength whether he realizes it or not I don’t know what it’s called, but… like, he hasn’t grown any balls or anything, nor lost them. he’s always had them. and even if it’s not plainly obvious because for some reason if it’s guys being abuse victims most of the signs aren’t plain or aren’t seen as such, but it doesn’t make that any less true and it’d be really nice if more people noticed that this guy has mental health issues which did and do affect his behavior and his choices instead of assuming he’s an asshole/exactly like his sister and then got his eyes opened when he lost his hand.
like. one would think that we wouldn’t call getting out of abusive/toxic relationships *growing some balls*, but what do I know. I have a feeling no one would say the equivalent if jaime had been a woman and cersei had been a man (I mean, when any woman does away with their abusers in this show no one says that they finally grew some balls…) but even with that, can we just acknowledge that this guy never actually was some kind of doormat that everyone stepped on and at some point just decided to wake up and grow a personality out of nowhere into his adulthood? thank you very much.
/out
