#Braime Wins | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ilynpilled · 1 year ago

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nowhere did i criticize rhaegar, and i offered a description of what i assume his thought process was when he told jaime to remain with the king which was not in any way unsympathetic towards him. i made similiar arguments as you did in my very post? the part of your statements that i take issue with are the parts i deem unfair and incorrect. i do not need this kind of context regarding fandom, i know it, i am in it, i understand the frustration, i was addressing your specific arguments that i believe are wrong.

also what “jaime apologists/braimes” are you referring to? where have i claimed that jaime is a better father? if you look at the tags in the poll that jaime was in a vast majority of jaime “apologists”, including myself, were rooting for him to win, and were jokingly frustrated that he got paired with someone so hard to beat in round one. also, i do not believe people criticizing a character means they excuse another character just because they like that character more for whatever reason (like that character being more complex and having a larger role in the story). i understand frustration with fandom hypocrisy, but that is also exactly what made me frustrated with your statements as i find them very reductive, or even incorrect.

did i make this assumption? i was describing what his function was to rhaegar, and likely every other adult, because it is relevant when evaluating where he ended up being during the sack, and what order he was following until he had to stop the plot, and what he could have done as a result, even if he suspected the order. i am talking about the order that he was given. i am describing his situation, not his personal feelings. but if we wanna speculate, i will openly say to you right now that i do believe that jaime wanted to not be near an erratic mad man who kept burning people alive in front of him more than he thirsted for glory, but feel free to have your own perspective. though jaime doesn’t focus on “take me with you”, he says “let someone else guard the king.” he would also rather be at the drawbridge at maegor’s holdfast, i dont doubt. regarding jaime being “terrified”, i, again, made no such claim, i just described the situation as dire and even said it is not something he could likely worry about considering how his focus was on the wildfire plot. but also, sure, ill speculate that the teen that has these executions as one of the most recurring sources of trauma in his povs during his adulthood, who the text claims dissociated during them happening, would have been affected by the possibility of potentially sharing the same fate, on top of repeatedly experiencing it happening to other people (the starks, chelsted etc) due to being near aerys, and as a result having to enable him due to his oaths.

as for jaime’s horrid actions during the canon: i talk about all of this extensively since he is my favorite character and it is much of the reason i like his story. i understand you wanna provide context for why you made your comment, but i do not see the point nor do i see how any of that is relevant when it comes to discussing his backstory, his characterization before and during these events that ended up shaping him and the trajectory of his life, and what i claimed was incorrect about your criticism of what he did and did not do then, and his situation during it.

regarding the choice, jaime was a 15 year old boy in a codependent incestous relationship that developed from neglect and a deeply rotten family. i am not talking about the affair when they were adults, it is a different argument. you can say this is “speculation” because it is not explicitly stated in the text, and feel free to tell me that it is normal that two children have an obsessive and entirely codependent sexual relationship since they were like 7 years old, and george did not intend to imply deeply damaging circumstances when it comes to the lannister family as a whole, and yes, that extends to jaime, tywin does not view him as a person either, hence he disowns him the moment he tells him that he will remain a kingsguard and not be his heir, in asos. we know that the moment a parent that actually had even an ounce of real care towards her children as actual people did everything in her power to stop her two children, that have not even sexually developed, from engaging in a sexual act they did not understand. she died soon after, and because tywin sure does not give a fuck about his children to even pay attention, the relationship continued and evolved (more like worsened). aerys took advantage of these two children to rob tywin of an heir, again, he conspired with cersei to have him take the white, obviously with his own intentions in mind. jaime chose cersei over the rock because he loves her and has a codependent relationship to her. that was his primary motivation, though his aspirations for knighthood also played a part. “honor & glory played their parts”, “that boy wanted to be arthur dayne.” this choice was a sacrifice on jaime’s part, he decided to give up on his birthright and most of his privileges for cersei, because that is what matters to him most: the things i do for love (in the so many vows speech he considers “love your sister” and “obey your father” as vows he swore too. he chose one over the other here). and while certain oaths (especially those of knighthood) matter to him more than others (he never really wanted to be a kingsguard), the kingsguard are only sworn to never marry and have children, they do not swear an oath when it comes to having sex, jaime points this out to cat in acok: “We of the Kingsguard vow never to wed, but I suppose I could still service you if that’s what you need.” same is stated in the soiled knight feast chapter: “I swore a vow . . .” “ . . not to wed or father children. Well, I have drunk my moon tea, and you know I cannot marry you. Though I might be persuaded to keep you for my paramour.” (which, if he continues to be her lover, the role jaime would accept to play for cersei if he could)

the moral and ethical dilemmas interrogated in jaime’s story and during his arguments in the current text is about how this feudal society is not at all ready for the precedent set by an elite guard actually killing his own king to prioritize the king’s subjects (in any form). here is the textual evidence: link. like vows the honor system and the kg as an institution and its codes of conduct exist to reinforce class stratification (obviously not the lens jaime approaches it from. he is not class conscious. but he used to idealize knighthood and heroism and the ideals these things embody) and when put under scrutiny it falls apart as a result and is not a sensible moral construct as whole at all and westeros is not ready to confront this obv. when it comes to jaime initially and his own values vs code of ethics or conduct and laws is that giving your word and honesty is a core component of knighthood and honor, things that he values, especially in an abstract sense. and the thing is that these promises will come into conflict. and they do early on since he swears to always love cersei too, and that is a value that is gonna be prioritized as a result. he is less focused on rules and codes of conduct when it comes to vows and more on personal values that end up being confronted with contradictions and systemic flaws that he is not brave enough to properly confront and stand up in the face of and triumph over.

also, jaime did not intend to marry or have children with cersei at this point, nowhere does he indicate the contrary. and since we are on speculation and what is and is not explicitly said in the text, the twins discuss being “near each other always”, and jaime also says “small price to pay to be near her”, so it is not even about continuing a sexual relationship during a royal marriage (which would be treason) though i understand the potential implication in “is it a rock you want, or me?” and that cersei convinces him to give his consent by making passionate love to him, but we also know cersei planned to marry rhaegar and bear his children: “Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons.” even with robert, and this is all post aerys, the last time we know that cersei and jaime have sex is the morning of her wedding, so before the marriage and consumation, and the next time that they do is when cersei finds out robert is secretly cheating on her during their marriage when she is 18-19 and at greenstone, both of them are mad over this, and jaime asks if he should kill him for this act (jaime is way past caring for vows, he knows they contradict, he knows he broke his vows of knighthood when enabling aerys, ntm kingslaying esp atp, this is post aerys/post complete disillusionment/post trying to make vows compromise. it doesnt matter, he accepted compromise is impossible, he became cynical), and she says no, she wants him horned instead. and it indicates that they start the affair here, and she claims she likes to believe that that is when joffrey was conceived. so all this indicates it wouldn’t have happened had she married rhaegar, it wasnt a part of their plan. in general, you can keep comparing characters in different circumstances all you want, but i am talking about his specific circumstances and his specific character, and the themes present with this character. yes, jaime had a choice, and he made it. the cersei plan fell apart as they ended up separated anyway, and he regretted it immediately the day that he was given the white cloak due to figuring out what it was all actually about, but there was no turning back because, as he points out, he said the words/swore the oaths for life. and then everything escalated. the story focuses on every delusion about honor, oaths, knighthood, heroism etc that jaime had being gruelingly taken apart leading to his disillusionment and his deterioration as a character, especially morally. the twins’ plan to not be separated was taken advantage of by aerys. you can argue with “but jon/dany/arya/sansa are kids and fandom-” but idc about general fandom, they do not reflect me. never in my life have i come at or been unreasonably harsh to a child character for making these kind of dumb and shortsighted decisions that had terrible unintended consequences, personal or otherwise, and believe it is unfair to do so, especially to this degree, especially with the themes of the series and generational cycles.

your statement that “the KG and Rhaegar would expect Jaime to do his job.” again, what job? this was one of my main points. his job is to protect the king. both rhaegar and darry tell him this before they leave. that was his role. that was the order. not anything else. so if we are focusing on ethical duties here, we do not see rhaegar tell him at any point to protect elia and the children, even though george puts in their last interaction. what rhaegar actually tells him is to be near aerys, and more to satiate him than anything else. this is why it is relevant what rhaegar says to him. one of the core issues is that he cannot be at two places at once (no matter what vow he is prioritizing: protect the innocent and kill aerys and save the city/save the children, or be with and protect aerys/protect the royal family [same idea with rhaella: “we are sworn to protect her as well” “yes, but not from him”], things contradict, things are unfair, just as certain oaths are impossible to uphold simultaneously. i am actually giving more credit to rhaegar here because i am not assuming that he expected to lay the weight on the shoulders of a single teen, despite the guilt jaime feels, that i went in depth with in my post. who, again, was not chosen for the KG for skill etc (jaime says this in the text), but to spite his father. jaime was a prodigy, yes, but he is still 15-17 years old, with a single real combat experience at this point at the kingswood. barristan himself says he is “too young and untried.” i do not think rhaegar is this incompetent, he just expected to return from the trident with the kg he takes with him there, as he says to jaime directly (we will talk when i return), and was likely positive that he would due to his assumption of a certain role in a prophecy. this is also when he finally intended to deal with aerys (long overdue. the wildfire was already placed. aerys’ paranoia escalated. he was enabled for too long. chelsted was executed for trying to stop aerys and quitting his job, etc), and make changes, which he too says should have been done long ago. this is speculation though from what we do have, (and there is no evidence for the contrary currently) and it is the most sympathetic one towards rhaegar in my opinion.

“Why is Jaime waiting around to find out?” here is a quick version. (so post slaying his king u can argue jaime is operating on his own moral values, not the ethical ones) because crakehall told him they secured everything, which turned out to be not true in retrospect (the scaling was happening, targ loyalists were still dying, ned was here), as jaime points out in the present. he does not do nothing. as a result of getting that very information from crakehall he explicitly makes the order to spare everybody that yields and hold them captive. i believe this is the most effective thing to do based on the knowledge he has. you are expecting jaime to personally act about a threat and order (that he is not aware of) that contradicts this very order he makes on the field that ensures their protection/them being spared to, in his mind, pointlessly rush over there after everything that just happened. yes, i find this unfair and unreasonable, and certain parts of the original claim u made incorrect. and again, even if he did, he would not have reached them because it was happening at the same time as him killing aerys. his fire doesnt gutter out when he gives the justification “i was with the king…”, it does when they reply to him with “yes, breaking your vow by cutting his throat and not protecting/dying for him.” as for the speculation about the throne part, which is not the part i said u were incorrect about, i know he sat on it and u can interpret it however you want, it is not the core of my argument, i followed it with “imo”, i know it is speculation. i proceed to speculate by looking at the other parts of that passage, and what (the potential of another aerys: “his blood is in both of them”) stops him from declaring viserys or aegon as king with tywin as hand (undoubtedly one of the best things for his family— also implies that he thinks that tywin would find it useful to keep them alive), and instead sit on the throne with his sword across his knees (a description george chooses to put there) and wait to see who claims it. regarding the rest, tysha happened after this, and i also discuss the very argument that you just made about what jaime should or should not know, and how that matters and changes at different points of the story, why i think it appears in the dream and why it matters, and what the guilt means in the full context of his story. i am fully holding him accountable in the circumstances where i believe he should be, because that is what makes his writing interesting to me.

———-———

HERES THE QUICK VERSION since i will acknowledge that i am obsessed with being unnecessarily thorough and can be longwinded instead of being concise. ill put away interpretation/themes/rationales whatever:

u came for ppl for being unfair and making claims based on “fanon” while u r not admitting u r wrong when it comes to statements you make. this is what i find hypocritical.

if we are operating with technicalities of vows rather than them as a reflection of different values with a lot of complicated facets, where taking certain ones seriously and others not/prioritizing ones over others are all nuances that the story deems important, and viewing his relationships to oaths as only valid from a (flawed. this society’s ethics keep contradicting) an ethical lens, jaime still would not have broken his kg vows when he originally joined the kg order: they vow to never marry and to never have children, not to never have sex.

he didnt even join the kg to “shag cersei”, he did it for love of her and so that they are not separated (this is all that is said in the text “to be near each other always” “to be near her always”) + (so many vows speech “love your sister” is something he considers a vow he swore. it is a vow he chooses over “obey your father” at 15): being in a sexual relationship while cersei is married to a king is treason leading to death. the affair started once robert cheated on cersei at greenstone, with both of them already being disillusioned (jaime by honor and knighthood and oaths, cersei by queenhood and her husband that said lyanna’s name during her bedding), and the last time they had sex before that that is stated in the text is the morning of her wedding, so before the marriage and consumation. jaime is distraught during cersei’s marriage, likely bc it marks the end of them being lovers in any form. the affair started at greenstone, theres no proof of the contrary, and there is indication for that being the case (both of them are mad that he cheated, why would they be if they were cheating too? jaime asks if she wants him dead. cersei says no, she wants him horned, indicating that he wasnt before), so there is very little, if any, ground to claim that the affair and sexual relationship would have continued if she had married rhaegar —the original plan was her marrying rhaegar and jaime being her kg so they are not separated and can remain near eachother— without his permission to take her brother as a paramour/without rhaegar cheating on her in secret (neither is likely to happen). and we also know that cersei wanted to bear rhaegar’s children if they married, not jaime’s. so i would like to see this claim substantiated in a way that outweighs all of this. especially if you are gonna say that jaime’s disillusionment with vows is not meaningful and his connection to knighthood and his relationship to heroism as a whole that was shaped by these two years means little bc he joined the kg at 15 in a way where he would not have respected a vow of never having sex (which isnt even the vow. it is also something that george does not believe indicates anything about morality or heroism generally?? its a sacrifice of personhood) and makes the personal aspirations we know he has that are revealed to be incompatible with the vows of the kg (based on society’s own rules too) despite how society presents the honor system to maintain a feudalistic status quo (“honor and glory played their part”, “wanted to be ser arthur dayne”) irrelevant.

heres the brief version for why i think your statements about the rhaegar’s children situation are extremely reductive and unfair at best, incorrect at worst

there are stuff in the text where u can be like “agree to disagree”, but you pulling this out now is hypocritical considering u r denying actual textual evidence for some of the claims that u make, and applying standards that would require accountability from characters you want to absolve, which is the very thing u guys were calling other ppl out for concerning rhaegar. and multiple ppl reblogged your post full of these statements as if they were entirely well founded and complete. do you understand my frustration? i dont have anything against you, but how is it any less valid than your frustration over misreads of rhaegar? im sorry for potentially being longwinded but i wanted to argue it as a result.

++++ addition bc i cant reply with something this long:

im sorry if this was unclear before, it is difficult to frame a point in tumblr replies, and the whole thing got confusing anyway:

here is the thorough version

it is debatable if u are able to provide me with evidence/an argument for why the affair did not happen until greenstone and started bc robert cheated. at 15, both of them have to believe that cersei would have to be in a royal marriage for the “near eachother always” idea to work (and they know this is tywin’s plan, jaime says this too) + cheating here would be treason leading to death, it is not the same as it was before. so jaime is in the kg, cersei is queen. also, cersei fully intends to marry and provide children for rhaegar. so if they know its gonna be a royal marriage, and they do not cheat on robert/they do not have sex after the marital vows were said, until the moment he cheats (both are mad at him here. jaime proposes to kill him for it. cersei says he wants him horned, which means cucked, and this is a specific circumstance that would not happen with rhaegar, which was their expectation. (also all of this is post jaime kingslaying and oathbreaking) what argument do u have for them intending to have a sexual relationship for the rest of their lives in kl from the beginning? them having had sex before/experimented with sex before does not disprove this. i know this, i acknowledge it in the long versions of my arguments. again, they should know a marriage would happen. and once a royal marriage happens, they do not pursue an affair until robert does, they just remain “near eachother.” this is what the text says. i am open to a counter argument that outweigh this interpretation you have it, but none of what you have said, or other meta you have linked me, gives it to me.

but when it comes to actual arguments, you are conflating ethics and morality which is the very conflict that jaime’s arc is dealing with. u say jaime never took oaths seriously and his “so many vows” speech is hypocritical, which he says in response to cat saying “how can he count himself a knight”, which concerns oaths of knighthood, because he intended to break a kg vow of chastity (the text still says its to not marry and not to have children, we can go back forth with it, but lets ignore this part). lets say that his intention is to have sex with cersei until the royal marriage, therefore breaking kg vows. nonetheless, jaime concerned himself with oaths of knighthood that he swore, (this also includes obeying the king), as well as honor, you see him argue with oaths of knighthood to the kingsguard, like in the situation with rhaellla “we are sworn to protect her as well” (protect all women, protect the innocent). if u use the argument that as per oaths of “obey the king” they are obligated to do this which is why barristan etc does it and why he is chaste and he can be considered someone that takes vows seriously, unlike jaime, the whole thesis of this part of the story and what jaime himself is highlighting is that they also already sworn other oaths that say “defend those who cannot defend themselves”, hence they are breaking an oath. this is what the so many vows speech is highlighting, it is pointing out to cat (he describes how every kg stood by during the stark executions that broke multiple vows: obey the laws, be just, protect those that cant protect themselves, protect the innocent, even respect the gods since it is a trial by combat that is being skewed) her’s and society’s understanding of abstract concepts that they strictly define through such social contracts that are literally impossible to keep doesnt hold weight if scrutinized, therefore calling him an oathbreaker would require calling every other kingsguard an oathbreaker too since they made oaths of knighthood.

if barristan’s etc reason is to enable these things is because they swore an oath that he doesnt want to break, it falls apart because he also swore an oath to do the very contrary. if jaime is not right to kill the king when he is burning people alive, even though he had sworn a vow that would obligate him to do so, he expects the same response for any form of breaking this precedent. oathbreaking at its core is viewed as the epitome of dishonor, so what decides what he has to even prioritize? i think u will agree with me that if we operate on a sensible moral framework, the more moral thing to do here is prioritize the oath that would urge u to protect/save innocent people rather than let them be burned to death/raped/abused? his argument is that “basing morality on oaths is stupid as shit. jaime thought they meant something and they should be kept until he confronted they couldnt.” and hes a hypocrite for making this argument because he wanted to have sex? it is also “u already swore another oath that u r breaking by doing this, so the argument that “uve sworn a vow so u must do this” and defining knighthood, honor, and heroism based on such criteria does not hold if put under scrutiny. this is why jaime is disillusioned with heroism and honor as a whole, not just “oaths”. this is his rationalization. it is not hypocritical, because he does not claim that he didn’t break vows, he is saying everybody else also repeatedly breaks them, and the whole thing is nonsense and should not be taken seriously and ethics are prioritized over morality, especially the kingsguard as an institution, and he will not even try. this is also when he actually starts having sex with cersei that we know of, and the textual evidence we have, this is his perspective. it leads to nihilism and amorality, which is the part the texts condemns, not his actual criticisms that he received no answer for from society, because it leads to amorality and apathy and putrid actions by jaime. jaime has no answer to how to grapple with this until brienne shows her example. she sees and accepts jaime’s confession, and maintains and prioritizes knightly vows that matter because she is altruistic.

“do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children, to obey your captains, your liege lord, and your king, to fight bravely when needed and do such other tasks as are laid upon you, however hard or humble or dangerous they may be” the more formal knighting vows is the same. every kingsguard took these vows

this is the whole point of this story. jaime is disillusioned by the concept of knighthood and honor and vows because he realizes that these oaths that knights take (these vows that he cares about do not include chastity yet, and its when he plans with cersei— + george is always emphasizing that we scrutinize such vows that robs a person of their personhood anyway. even if he did not care about that particular vow, his criticism of everything else stands anyway. and jaime keeps realizing that the ethics are inherently impossible), that by 15 he knew about and took seriously, again same as love ur sister is also a vow he says he swore before he swore his knighthood vows, (he also did not swear his kg vows yet, so now u r making the assumption that he knows the full extent of his kg vows here at this very point). Jaime’s disillusionment is rooted in the fact that the epitome of knights that he wanted to emulate and dreamed of becoming as what he understood them as, and everybody else in the realm looks up to, do not make sense, and are deeply immoral people, as well as oathbreakers. the honor system itself does not make sense, which is something he did value, and that is tied to vows too.

+ my meta where i come to similiar conclusions

and u r saying jaime didnt take vows seriously when he explicitly says that once he swore the oaths he wanted to rip his cloak off once he found out the real reason he was chosen, but believes he couldn’t because he already swore the oaths (cersei is not in the picture when he decides to take his vows. tywin gets mad and takes her back to cr and there is no royal marriage. all jaime has now are dreams of knighthood, honor (this includes vows) and glory, and the oaths he swore now. the love aspect is gone: and we know jaime never had sex with anyone but cersei in his life, he even sardonically highlights to cat that this is a vow he prioritizes and keeps unlike ned supposedly, and in his own way he is being more true if one prioritizes vows of love — which is the only thing agot jaime prioritizes with what became of his character: it is only family. nothing else. “live for tyrion. live for cersei.”). and he also wants to act with rhaella because he highlights that they swore to protect her as well, which is again a vow he values bc it is more ethically and morally sound, knows everybody is breaking, but then gets shut down by a renown knight and kingsguard. so we know jaime knew vows of knighthood, and cared about them, and it is the aspect of the kg that he found meaningful, and george emphasizes that personal morality having conflict with ethics is important anyway, (honor & glory played its part — these are values of knighthood, the thing he cares about and conflates with the kg, as does every single pov and character in the current text does to, naively) until all of it was deconstructed in two years. during these two years, jaime is trying to take his oaths seriously because it is honorable to do so, and his conflict is about seeing how his personal morality seems to align with this society’s ethical values, and how it all contradicts, which is why he is so conflicted and does not immediately act or leave until he is pushed so far that a whole city will die if he does not break the kg vows instead of the knighthood ones/his personal moral code this time. u also keep saying i am just making assumptions when we have a passage in the book where george outright delineates when cersei decided to cuck robert, and the only time we know jaime and cersei actually have sex is post his disillusionment with honor, vows, heroism, and knighthood. he cannot be ser arthur dayne, and he has shit for honor because of the oathbreaking and because he believes it is all nonsense now. all he cares about now is cersei, which is the personal vow he swore to love his sister. and what is the purpose of this passage if not to showcase that cersei started the affair to retaliate against robert, and the affair was not happening before? and everything else in the text reinforces and allows this passage to make sense. i say it is up to debate, but i have not seen an argument that outweighs mine. i pointed this out bc a lot of ur arguments also rely on speculation: “rhaegar and everybody know he is an adult, so they are right to expect of him to handle the red keep alone” which we know is innately flawed logic bc it was logistically impossible for him to save the children if he also murdered the king. and ntm that we know in the text that barristan, the best knight ever by most accounts, thought he was “too young and untried”. but we are gonna go in circles here believing that the other is not providing proper arguments, and we both think what the other is saying is insufficient, so we can end this here, it has been pointlessly going on for like 3 days. i have laid down every argument in my response, and u urs. if ppl see it they can decide for themselves what they find more convincing and thats it. i will stop responding now, because i think its cyclical and unnecessary. cheers to u too

@blankwhiteshield I thought I would respond in a separate post since I don't want to derail from @fromtheseventhhell's OG post about something else. You responded to my comment here by saying that I was 'entirely wrong' and linking to an essay on Jaime Lannister and I did try to read through all that to get a gist of your explanation.

First I want to mention that Rhaegar being a pre-asoiaf/background/tertiary character means we don't know a lot about him. I can only speculate as to his thoughts and motives and why he did what he did.

I wrote that comment because the absolute hypocrisy of Jaime Lannister apologists/Braime shippers critiquing Rhaegar grinds my gears something fierce. And I am not even a Rhaegar fan - he's a character that there's to set other characters on their journey and to set the story.

The consequences of Jaime's incestual adultery was the spark that lead to the WOT5K that two years on is still ongoing with no stability in war torn Westeros. Jaime Lannister attempts to murder a little child because he can't keep it in his pants for the short duration they are visiting the Starks. Jaime was hunting down a 9 year old to cut off her hand. That poll about Rhaegar being a bad father when Jaime refers to Joffrey as semen in Cersei's cunt is a farce.

Hence my comment.

Now, let's start with Jaime being Aerys' hostage. Yes, Aerys used Jaime against Tywin. However, why was Jaime in the Kingsguard (KG) in the first place? He was Tywin's golden child and heir to Casterly Rock, unlike Cersei and Tyrion having no value for Tywin because she is a girl and he is disabled.

Aerys had no power over Jaime until he chose to join the KG to serve the Mad King. Jaime had more choice than the 14 year old bastard Jon Snow who had to leave Winterfell and the NW is pretty much the only option available to him. He had more choice than his sister Cersei. He had more choice than disabled Tyrion getting physically/sexually abused by his own family.

So why did Jaime decide to join the KG? So that he could be close to Cersei and sleep with her. Jaime joins the KG knowing that he was going to break the KG oaths of celibacy. He didn't care about oaths when joining the KG , right?

This is why Jaime's entire spiel about oaths never had any emotional weight for me, coming from a character who had no value for oaths in the first place and who had no intention of upholding his sworn oaths when he joined the KG.

I can understand a character like Jon Snow's angst and conflict when he is forced to sleep with Ygritte or when he has to choose between the NW and saving his sister, because oaths are important to Jon Snow. Oaths and honor is important to someone like Ned Stark. Jaime? Considering his total disrespect for the KG oaths when he joins them to simply be close to Cersei, I don't get it.

Next, Rhaegar's conversation with Jaime.

Why do you assume here that Jaime was scared of Aerys and asking Rhaegar to save/rescue him from Aerys? I mean, Jaime was KG. At 13 he won his first melee. At 15 he was defeating other skilled swordsmen.

It could just as well be Jaime eager to fight with Rhaegar in battle and asking that Rhaegar leave behind the older KG like Darry to instead guard the king because the battle is where the fight is. Jaime thinks that guarding someone is not as exciting as fighting in battle. It's even right there in the next sentence when Jaime gets angry about being referred to as a crutch and he's like ' I AM A KINGSGUARD'.

We see something similar when Jon begs his uncle to take him for ranging.

Three days after their arrival, Jon had heard that Benjen Stark was to lead a half-dozen men on a ranging into the haunted forest. That night he sought out his uncle in the great timbered common hall and pleaded to go with him. Benjen refused him curtly. - Jon, AGoT

There's also not much Rhaegar can probably do at that point (speculating here) - facing war/battle - about his volatile, angry father, the King. There are all these essays about the effect that Tywin had on Jaime... imagine the burden of being the Mad King's son. What power does Rhaegar have to take away the King's choice of KG? Rhaegar didn't even have the power to send his own wife and children elsewhere. Him actively interfering was only going to further anger a king who was already paranoid about the crown prince. Hence the 'I dare not take away that crutch from him at such a hour'.

I think you also mention that Jaime was terrified of being executed as an hostage - is this mentioned anywhere in the books or are you just assuming/speculating on his thought process here?

Jon Snow is elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at 16. In Westeros 16 is considered a man grown and Jaime is an adult by Westerosi standards and Rhaegar certainly didn't see him as some kind of child hostage like that post deliberately twisted it into.

A boy in Westeros is considered to be a "man grown" at sixteen years. The same is true for girls. Sixteen is the age of legal majority, as twenty-one is for us.

At any rate, Rhaegar and Jaime's fellow KG expected the KG left behind in KL - Jaime Lannister - to do his job and protect the crown prince's wife and babies as per sworn oaths.

In which Jaime fails because while his father's men, including the Mountain, were scaling the walls to rape and murder Elia and her babies, Jaime was lounging on the throne waiting for one of the rebels to get there. And hence his guilt when confronted by ghosts of his past in his weirwood dreams.

You have written a lot on how Jaime could not have known about what Tywin's men would do. I mean, why is he waiting around to find out what they would do?! Sorry, these are piss poor excuses and even Jaime Lannister himself doesn't really believe this because he knows that he should have immediately gone to their side after the King was dead as his ghosts tell him.

Jaime knows his father. He knows what Tywin is capable of. He was there for what Tywin did to Tysha. KL was even then being raped and pillaged. And he thought nothing would happen to the Targaryen princess and her children?

The Mad King was dead - literally backstabbed by the hostage. What should this skilled Kingsguard do next? Immediately go to Elia and the babies to protect Rhaegar's family as Rhaegar entrusted him to do or sit on the Throne waiting for someone to come there? We know what Jaime chose to do:

'Then he climbed the Iron Throne and seated himself with his sword across his knees to see who would come to claim the kingdom. As it happened, it had been Eddard Stark'.

This is what is given to us in the books. Nothing more, nothing else. You can add to this of course, but that would be speculative theorizing on what Jaime's thoughts and feelings are about all this, not what is actually given to us in the books.

#discourse #i am slightly in a rush and on my way to a class rn so if i misunderstood any of your points or whatever i assume that is why #maybe i should have used a different phrasing than ‘entirely incorrect’#but i do think u make statements that are incorrect and others that r reductive

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