a blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice

fanfic writers:

Game of Thrones  (April 17, 2011–May 19, 2019)

So I’m supposed to accept that Jaime just *forgot* that Cersei tried to kill him? TWICE. And that after she betrayed him and manipulated him and after seasons of struggling by her side and getting increasingly fed up with her destructive and myopic actions, he had finally reached a point where he could no longer stay in King’s Landing? The line should have been the Sept of Baelor, but since his realization of her toxicity came later, it makes his abrupt return to her even more baffling. 

He had realized that his life doesn’t mean more to her than her desire for the Throne, that she would sacrifice him for power, and he decided he was done. And so we’re supposed to forget all the growth and maturation his character underwent to bring him to that weighty point of decision and treat his journey to Winterfell, his fighting alongside Cersei’s enemies, his embracing of his love for Brienne, his committing himself to staying in Winterfell with her while Cersei was losing as a mere blip in his overall storyline? 

We didn’t get any insight into his thoughts or any explanation as to what triggered this dramatic shift that led him to leave Brienne and go back to Cersei when Cersei was winning. The timing and potential motivations don’t make sense. He had already left her knowing it was treason and knowing she was pregnant, and that wasn’t enough to keep him in King’s Landing, or enough to motivate him to go back right after the battle at Winterfell. Apparently he was fine staying in Winterfell with Brienne while the Northern armies went forth to defeat her. 

There simply wasn’t enough groundwork in place to justify that sudden turn so it felt like whiplash and deeply disturbing to fans who have invested so much in his long journey. We’re being asked to accept that the man who two episodes before knighted Brienne and tenderly charged her to “defend the innocent” all of a sudden doesn’t care about anyone else but Cersei? We’re being asked to accept that the man who defended thousands by killing Aerys, saved a woman who was his captor from rape and then a bear, left his sister because she wouldn’t go fight to save humanity, is really that callous and detached from anyone but Cersei? 

It simply doesn’t make sense from a narrative standpoint and based on what the writers have already established within their own canon. Earlier in Season 8, we see Jaime referring to his relationship with Cersei in the past tense and with disgust. He has finally freed himself from that harmful dynamic and now has the opportunity to build healthy relationships and serve alongside people who will not ask him to do something that will dishonor him. 

That matters in the overall arc of Jaime’s character and what his motivations are. He is fundamentally compelled by love, yes, but he is also a character who cares deeply about what other people think of him. He does care about his legacy. He does care that people condemn him as a Kingslayer. And so much of his journey is about him rediscovering and reclaiming an identity apart from a narrow adherence to his family loyalties. It’s about him realizing that part of him still yearns to be the knight of honor he initially envisioned he would be, and his relationship with Brienne galvanizes that reawakening. She embodies the characteristics he would like to live up to, and she challenges to be more than what he settles for at Cersei’s side. 

During his travels with Brienne and after losing his hand, we see Jaime grow more humble, more willing to consider others’ welfare, more willing to set aside family loyalty aside to do what he believes is right, whether that is sending Brienne on a mission to save Sansa or riding North to fight with the Starks. These actions serve as a counterpoint to how we are introduced to his character when all he appears to be is an incestuous almost child-murderer. Catelyn Stark declares he is “a man without honor,” and the rest of his arc after that point examines and challenges that thesis. 

Jaime remains a flawed character who makes some truly terrible choices. However, while the writing for his character was mishandled so often (looking at you Seasons 5-7), the narrative did give him space to actually grow to the point where the Jaime we see land in Winterfell is drastically different than the one we met in Season 1. 

Yes, Cersei will always be part of him, but as his scenes when apart from her demonstrate, she does not have to be definitive of him. He can exist and thrive apart from her, he can make choices to defend others, he can live honorably. He has the capacity for this, and this has been evidenced again and again, most notably by his time in Winterfell. 

I see Jaime’s story as less of a redemption arc and more about self-discovery and growth–similar to Zuko in Avatar The Last Airbender (another character known for his complicated relationship with honor). When he arrives in Winterfell, for the first time he has to actually confront the consequences of his choices (like pushing Bran) and reevaluate who he now wants to be. He resolves to fight and die by the woman he loves and defend the Living. What nobler and more honorable cause could there be for a man once deemed to have no honor?

Jaime knighting Brienne is a culminating point in his character arc because in that scene he is given the opportunity to become that knight of honor, repeating the vows he once took with a renewed sense of conviction of their importance. It’s also an act of love that for once does not cause collateral damage in the way his actions for Cersei did. Again, this is the narrative reinforcing his self-discovery and his commitment to change. 

And when he and Brienne finally embrace the love they have for each other, that shift feels earned because it’s reaping the fruits of several seasons of their parallel development and the ways their characters have informed and shaped each other’s growth. Their love story makes sense in light of the themes of honor and loyalty and past hurt in relationships that are present in both of their stories. It makes sense that these two could find a fulfilling kindredness in each other that frees them to move forward rather than be mired in past wounds. 

I say all this to reiterate that the show’s narrative has already established an arc for Jaime where it feels organic and believable for him to finally leave Cersei and forge an identity and life apart from her influence. That choice carried a lot of weight, and so to have that weight diminished and dismissed with a handwave to conclude, “Well he’s addicted to Cersei and realizes he’s just BAD,” is frankly insulting to anyone who has been paying attention to the storytelling thus far and a huge disservice to both Jaime and Brienne’s characters. 

This is not subversion or being “realistic.” This is contradictory and lazy writing that conveniently ignores certain aspects of the Jaime’s journey in order to use him as a plot device to engineer a final scene with the Lannister twins dying together, as if that is the most poetic and fitting way for their stories to end. When Jaime declares, “No one matters but us,” it’s as if absolutely nothing changed for him between Season 1 and Season 8 if he and Cersei are still framed as moral and romantic equals so intertwined that nothing else exists. 

If the narrative hadn’t already given me enough contrast to his statement through previous examples, maybe I could have accepted this ending for them. But the fact is….it didn’t which is why Jaime’s arc in Season 8 felt so rushed and like a retcon of all that the writers had already built up over several seasons.  

And in a show with so many characters who have suffered from being stuck in a cycle of abusive and toxic relationships, to conclude that they simply cannot break out of that and are unable to change is disheartening and disturbing. Jaime’s story is inextricable from the idea of change and renewal, and to assert that his final conclusion about himself is that he is fixed, static as this hateful person, is truly tragic. It leaves us wondering if Catelyn’s original assumption is the final word on the character, even though we’ve been presented with so much evidence of the contrary. 

The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true.

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