#for a knight character he doesnt even have a king to order him to commit unspeakable violence as mere implement and tool.

[thedragonagelesbian]

ontological evil is boring except for when its me thinking about cyrus being led to utter ruin by placing his trust and devotion in the hands of someone who wields him with perfect and devastating precision

[ilynpilled]

edited for person im arguing with lol:

we do not excuse jaime for just being an inexperienced teen, we are acknowledging the reality of it straight up not being possible for him to teleport over from 7 to the drawbridge of 26 faster than it takes two men to finish scaling the walls of 26 (the text confirms twice that the scaling was happening already when jaime was murdering aerys) to prevent an order the text says he doesnt know about that also contradicts a command that he explicitly gives to his father’s men after hearing incomplete information about the state of the situation. and all this after he finishes committing one of the most significant oathbreakings in history and the most defining act of his life of murdering his own king to prevent a whole city from being nuked. he was left alone as the only kg to guard the red keep. there is a core issue here of him being unable to do all of this alone even if he had all the information. even if he tried to do everything in his power and had all the right suspicions and the knowledge to act he would have been unable to stop it. the text emphasizes this, it emphasizes that he was with the king, slitting his throat, to save a city, instead of being near or at the drawbridge at maegor’s (a knight of the kingsguard is positioned there usually for a reason). jaime was surrounded by the kg, experienced adults, who for two years enabled an erratic and paranoid tyrant to burn people alive, start a war by doing so, rape and abuse his wife, and place caches of wildfire across a city. and all this time these adults have told jaime nothing but “accept this, you swore to obey, stay near him. keep your oath.” but the person that has to be condemned for “incompetence” and “cowardice” (because, yes, based on all this information it is the only ground you have. there is no evidence of malicious intent or apathy of any sort. we know what information he has. we know what he thought during) is him. i dont even blame rhaegar, again, he expected to return “we will talk when i return”, and even finally do what was long overdue and deal with aerys, and he was likely confident he would because of a prophecy that i know concerned an existential threat to humanity, and he did not know what would happen at the trident and that his father would be so paranoid that he would lock elia and her children in the red keep (if you use the argument that jaime should know and think about everything his father may or may not do the very minute he is found murdering the king by the men that tell him, incorrectly, that the place is secured, and he should suspect that his order to spare everybody that yields is already being contradicted by a secret order of his father’s, then this same exact argument can be applied to rhaegar and he should have had a different strategy or a safety net, or been more cautious when it comes to the threat his father represents or straight up just been able to deal with him as if it is that easy. his family were just not allowed to leave with rhaella and viserys (who was named heir, with aegon effectively disinherited) as elia wanted because aerys felt like he was betrayed by dorne and lewyn after the trident (also speaks to what duty rhaegar even expected of jaime when he left. it is present in their last conversation. what threat he is aware of. we see what he tells him. both he and darry expect him to remain with the king at all times and serve as a hostage against tywin and keep aerys in check. they also know he is just one person)

why is jaime even singled out? not other kingsguard who knew he was in the city alone (post the trident or before the trident) and that aerys is a tyrannical threat (but my vows and orders wahh), not pycelle, not tywin, not the men that did the horrid action themselves. in order to absolve rhaegar of any and all responsibility when it comes to naivety or lack of foresight (neither flaw is a detriment to his moral character) u shift the blame and criticize jaime for the exact same thing in an even more absurdly unfair way. you guys want him to be someone this evil and apathetic from the beginning, with his guilt over failure rooted in that, when the whole point is that he stagnated and morally deteriorated due to how cynical all of this made him.

and regarding the argument that he is considered the most skilled kg by these people and so they rightfully think that he should be able to handle the red keep and all these responsibilities alone: “Selmy had never approved of Jaime's presence in his precious Kingsguard. Before the rebellion, the old knight thought him too young and untried; afterward, he had been known to say that the Kingslayer should exchange that white cloak for a black one.”