Why this is all down to forced, bad writing (a.k.a. “kind of forgot”)
I am honestly tired of people trying to push back against rightfully enraged fans saying “this makes sense, if you think about it”, because it does NOT.
In order for this to make sense you have to ignore internal consistency (not just from one season to another, but even within the same season - if not episode), you have to ignore past events, you have to write characters as forgetful of their own past events and those of the characters they interact with, and you have to resort to Deus Ex Machina explanations such as “addiction” and “madness” to explain why characters who were seemingly moving in a certain direction, as grey as they can be, can suddenly flip a switch with the sound of a bell or with one sentence, like they are brainwashed sleeper agents in a bad 60s Cold War movie.
And we *know* for a fact that this is the kind of handwaving D&D have been doing all along this season, to get the plot where they wanted it to go, against all internal logic. It was them saying that Dany “kind of forgot about Euron’s fleet” just because they needed her to be weakened and Missandei executed to justify her madness (and in that war council full of people, not ONE advisor remembered Euron? Sure). It was Nutter saying that Euron “wasn’t paying attention” when Tyrion brought up Cersei’s pregnancy, because they didn’t want drama over the paternity to be explored. And you can see that kind of modus operandi across so many of the pivotal, destructive moments in this season:
- In order for Jaime and Brienne’s breakup to work, they had to deliberately write Brienne as a passive, weak recipient to Jaime’s words. Brienne who, only two episodes prior, stood in front of a room full of people ready to kill Jaime on the spot, in order to defend him by listing just a couple of his many honorable deeds, had to stay quiet as Jaime listed the three bad deeds that apparently write off his character as unredeemable (one, which he asked and received forgiveness for; another, which was show-only, and yet another which was changed in the show to be about Cersei rather than about Catelyn). They could not have her respond with a list of all the honourable things he had done FOR HER and for others here, or it would have made no sense for Jaime to leave like that. So Brienne “kind of forgot” about the fact that she knows Jaime better than anyone, wept and let him go.
- Despite Jaime and Tyrion spending most of the season hanging out with Brienne, and Tyrion obviously knowing about Jaime and Brienne’s relationship and being happy for them, once Jaime leaves Winterfell, it’s like Brienne has been wiped from both their minds. Nobody brings her up. Why? Because there would be no way to logically justify how Tyrion, who was fantasizing about killing Cersei as a zombie two episodes prior, and Jaime, who dropped Cersei’s plans in Daenerys’ lap when she was still at full strength with two dragons and two full armies, would suddenly BOTH be so concerned with rescuing their abusive sister from her well-earned doom, instead of protecting the happiness they finally found as a family in the North, with Brienne. So both Jaime and Tyrion “kind of forgot” about Brienne and that’s all she wrote.
- Cersei threatens to kill both Tyrion and Jaime when they are in King’s Landing, and sends Bronn after them to make sure they are dead. Yet, neither brother seems concerned or in any way angered by that fact, and, instead, really wants to save her. And when Jaime shows up in King’s Landing, Cersei is suddenly concerned that he’s injured, when she would have dropped the keys to Riverrun in Bronn’s lap had he brought her Jaime’s head not long ago. In order to make the (vomit) “romantic” twincest death possible, Tyrion, Jaime, and Cersei all “kind of forgot” that Cersei has wanted her brother dead for months.
- Jaime sacrificed his reputation to save the people of King’s Landing. Yet his greatest sacrifice amounts to nothing, not only because he’s unable to prevent Daenerys from finishing what her father started, but because, apparently, Jaime now does not even care about the innocent. Had Jaime been true to his character and cared about the innocent and tried to help them, he would have never made it back to Cersei in time, and would have died honourably instead. D&D could just not have that. So Jaime “kind of forgot” he threw his reputation away when he was just 17 to save a city.
They forced an ending onto Jaime’s arc like a duck that’s been force fed to make foie gras. That’s what it comes down to. Had they really wanted to have him die trying to save Cersei, they could have gone about it in literally 30 different ways that would have been truer to his character, without making every single character come across as fools in the process, at best, or assassinated at worst. The simplest would have been to have Jaime go back to save her because of their unborn child: Brienne would have understood without being heartbroken and finding her entire relationship with him invalidated. Tyrion would have understood, without coming across like an idiot who wants to save his sister after a life time of abuse and attempted murder. Jaime would have been true to his character, taking responsibility for the innocent life who didn’t ask for this. But that required too much thinking, and would have not romanticized incestuous toxicity. Which was really D&D’s ultimate goal all along.
janainaart
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
romaincrisis
