jaime/brienne and stannis/davos :3
thank you very much for the ask and the ships!
i find their reversed beauty and the beast vibe and their gender fuckery deeply compelling. they are integral for each other character development; there's no jaime lannister without brienne of tarth and no brienne of tarth without jaime lannister.
the story of a bitter knight who used to believe in honor and codes of chilvalry (who was let down by the system he reinforces) discovering True Knighthood through a woman is incredibly moving.
i don't think they're going to be endgame, because i'm pretty certain jaime is going to die:
“The flames will burn so long as you live,” he heard Cersei call. “When they die, so must you.”
The fires that ran along the blade were guttering out, and Jaime remembered what Cersei had said. No. Terror closed a hand about his throat. Then his sword went dark, and only Brienne’s burned, as the ghosts came rushing in.
and i dislike some fandom interpretations of their relationship where they end up married with a bunch of children. their appeal to me is the gender fuckery. brienne is a lady and a knight. she's the beauty and she's the beast. jaime is a false knight. he's a false beauty. giving them an heteronormative ending is boring and (in my opinion) a bad reading of both of their characters.
still, i enjoy them for what they are on the text. the lady knight and the golden knight. the true knight and the false knight. the beauty and the beast. the beast and the beauty. they're not mean to be a fairy tale ending, but two characters whose fates have interwoven and managed to deeply change the other. i believe that's beautiful and as worthy of being told as a fairy tale ending.
i simply refuse to believe that george wrote renly and loras as clearly in love and then we are supposed to believe stannis and davos have nothing going on.
not only because the most interesting read of stannis' character is him as a repressed queer man:
"Renly offered me a peach. At our parley. Mocked me, defied me, threatened me, and offered me a peach. I thought he was drawing a blade and went for mine own. Was that his purpose, to make me show fear? Or was it one of his pointless jests? When he spoke of how sweet the peach was, did his words have some hidden meaning?" The king gave a shake of his head, like a dog shaking a rabbit to snap its neck. "Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach."
but because there is simply not straight explanation for anything davos and stannis have going on.
"On your knees, Onion Knight."
"I am your man, Your Grace. So it is your tongue, to do with as you please."
i KNOW grrm was giggling and kicking his feet writing that.
i don't think they will ever consumate anything, because it's part of stannis' tragedy to never taste the peach. he killed his brother but renly was able to enjoy life (by accepting his queerness) in a way stannis will not.
but again, as with brienne and jaime, i enjoy them for what they are on text. i think their repressed longing and doomed narrative is incredibly compelling in a way a happy ending would not be.
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