#brienne**

Let’s unpack this.

Brienne was betrothed three times. 

The first time she was a child, but the boy she was betrothed to died of fever.

The second time she was thirteen and Ronnet Connington was six years her senior. When he came to see her, he insulted her looks, tossed a rose at her and told her it was the only thing she would have gotten from him.

Her third and last suitor, a ser Humphrey Wagstaff, told her she would have to learn how to behave as a proper lady. So Brienne challenged him to duel, telling him she would only accept such demands from a man who could beat her in combat. He couldn’t. And the betrothal was broken.

When Brienne was in Renly’s camp, Hyle Hunt and some other guys made a wager to get her maidenhead, and started wooing her (aka lowkey harassing her). Though Brienne knew it was all a game, a mockery, it still hurt. (because deep down Brienne wants to experience this romance stuff for real, from a man who really means it, and who is not gross to her.)

later on, in the melee at Bitterbridge where she won her rainbow cloak, she beat them all. She also beat Loras, who didn’t take part to the wager (but had three roses on his shield and Brienne hates roses because Red Ronnet but also because obviously Loras had Renly’s love, which Brienne would never have).

this establishes a pattern in which we have Brienne beat in combat potential lovers (husbands) who don’t deserve her (reflected in their inability to keep up with her superior strength and martial skills) and keep her maidenhead intact over and over again. This is (in large part) because of the trauma Red Ronnet inflicted on her when she was thirteen, that made her decide she will not be humiliated again and fight anyone who dares to ask for her hand.

the rose Red Ronnet tosses at her is an OBVIOUS homage to beauty and the beast, but wonderfully subverted: Brienne’s “offense” is being too ugly and witch!Ronnet “curses” her by making her forever insecure about her appearance and completely destroying her trust in men to the point that she won’t accept to be betrothed OR courted by anyone EVER AGAIN. Like the Beast is forced to hide in his castle, in sadness and isolation, Brienne is forced to build “a fortress inside herself” and hide behind it. 

   … until someone unexpected comes and breaks the curse. 

Remember the part about Brienne beating her suitors? Fast forward to ASOS:

Steel met steel with a ringing, bone-jarring clang. Somehow Brienne had gotten her own blade out in time. Jaime laughed. “Very good, wench.” “Give me the sword, Kingslayer.” “Oh, I will.” He sprang to his feet and drove at her, the longsword alive in his hands. Brienne jumped back, parrying, but he followed, pressing the attack. No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime’s blood was singing. This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke. And with my wrists chained together, the wench may even give me a contest for a time. His chains forced him to use a two-handed grip, though of course the weight and reach were less than if the blade had been a true two-handed greatsword, but what did it matter? His cousin’s sword was long enough to write an end to this Brienne of Tarth. High, low, overhand, he rained down steel upon her. Left, right, backslash, swinging so hard that sparks flew when the swords came together, upswing, sideslash, overhand, always attacking, moving into her, step and slide, strike and step, step and strike, hacking, slashing, faster, faster, faster… until, breathless, he stepped back and let the point of the sword fall to the ground, giving her a moment of respite. “Not half bad,” he acknowledged. “For a wench.”She took a slow deep breath, her eyes watching him warily. “I would not hurt you, Kingslayer.” “As if you could.” He whirled the blade back up above his head and flew at her again, chains rattling.   

Jaime could not have said how long he pressed the attack. It might have been minutes or it might have been hours; time slept when swords woke. He drove her away from his cousin’s corpse, drove her across the road, drove her into the trees. She stumbled once on a root she never saw, and for a moment he thought she was done, but she went to one knee instead of falling, and never lost a beat. Her sword leapt up to block a downcut that would have opened her from shoulder to groin, and then she cut at him, again and again, fighting her way back to her feet stroke by stroke. The dance went on. He pinned her against an oak, cursed as she slipped away, followed her through a shallow brook half-choked with fallen leaves. Steel rang, steel sang, steel screamed and sparked and scraped, and the woman started grunting like a sow at every crash, yet somehow he could not reach her. It was as if she had an iron cage around her that stopped every blow. “Not bad at all,” he said when he paused for a second to catch his breath, circling to her right. “For a wench?” “For a squire, say. A green one.” He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh. “Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music’s still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?”

(look at all the sexual innuendos and strangely flirtatious language here and all the chasing around and slipping away and tell me if it doesn’t sound like sexual foreplay.)

JAIME IS BRIENNE’S MATCH. Jaime is the worthy adversary that could (and probably would) beat her (thus, unknowingly earning his right to claim her as his bride) if he hadn’t spent the last months in captivity and if his hands weren’t chained together:

You’re a virgin, I take it? Childhood must have been awful for you. Were you a foot taller than all the boys? They laughed at you, called you names? Some boys like a challenge. One or two must have tried to get inside big Brienne. But you fought them off. Maybe you wished one of them could overpower you, fling you down, tear off your clothes. But none of them were strong enough. I’m strong enough. 

(show!Jaime, making this concept REALLY EXPLICIT in 2x10)  

But Brienne is Jaime’s match, too:

Grunting, she came at him, blade whirling, and suddenly it was Jaime struggling to keep steel from skin. One of her slashes raked across his brow, and blood ran down into his right eye. The Others take her, and Riverrun as well! His skills had gone to rust and rot in that bloody dungeon, and the chains were no great help either. His eye closed, his shoulders were going numb from the jarring they’d taken, and his wrists ached from the weight of chains, manacles, and sword. His longsword grew heavier with every blow, and Jaime knew he was not swinging it as quickly as he’d done earlier, nor raising it as high. She is stronger than I am. The realization chilled him. Robert had been stronger than him, to be sure. The White Bull Gerold Hightower as well, in his heyday, and Ser Arthur Dayne. Amongst the living, Greatjon Umber was stronger, Strongboar of Crakehall most likely, both Cleganes for a certainty. The Mountain’s strength was like nothing human. It did not matter. With speed and skill, Jaime could beat them all. But this was a woman. A huge cow of a woman, to be sure, but even so… by rights, she should be the one wearing down. Instead she forced him back into the brook again, shouting, “Yield! Throw down the sword!”

Then Jaime does something:

A slick stone turned under Jaime’s foot. As he felt himself falling, he twisted the mischance into a ping lunge. His point scraped past her parry and bit into her upper thigh. A red flower blossomed, and Jaime had an instant to savor the sight of her blood before his knee slammed into a rock. 

Jaime wounds Brienne (in her upper thigh, with “his point”, lmao) and “a red flower blossomed” which is a shameless allusion to deflowering (combined with “savor the sight of her blood”… see also Barbrey Dustin’s “I still remember the look of my maiden’s blood on his cock the night he claimed me. I think Brandon liked the sight as well. A bloody sword is a beautiful thing, yes”).

Then they keep rolling and “kicking and punching until finally she was sitting astride him” (WHAT) and it gets really violent from here and Brienne slams Jaime hard underwater and yells him to yield or she’ll drown him, but it doesn’t matter because Jaime has already metaphorically claimed Brienne’s maidenhead: he made her bleed.

And, important, the fight doesn’t end with a clear-cut winner, because they’re interrupted by the Bloody Mummers. And that’s when the sexual / wedding night metaphors stop being subtext and become TEXT:

Brienne lurched to her feet. She was all mud and blood below the waist, her clothing askew, her face red. She looks as if they caught us fucking instead of fighting. Jaime crawled over the rocks to shallow water, wiping the blood from his eye with his chained hands. Armed men lined both sides of the brook. Small wonder, we were making enough noise to wake a dragon. “Well met, friends,” he called to them amiably. “My pardons if I disturbed you. You caught me chastising my wife.”

(thanks, Jaime)

Now consider:

Brienne nursing and cleaning Jaime after he is maimed (the kind of intimacy you would expect from a married couple)

Brienne and Jaime being naked together in the bathtub scene (and Jaime popping a boner after stealing a glimpse of Brienne’s pubic hair)

the Oathkeeper scene, in which they act all awkward and compliment each other like a newly wed couple in honeymoon (“Blue is a good color on you, my lady. It goes well with your eyes” and “You look…” “…Different?”) and then Jaime gives Brienne his invaluable sword

aside from the obvious sexual metaphor, the sword is a symbolically charged object: it represents the very heart and soul of a warrior, so giving your sword to someone is like giving a piece of you. And sharing the same sword (like Jaime and Brienne share Oathkeeper) is like sharing one soul. From this meta (which I recommend reading because it explains a lot of the stuff I’m trying to get at and much more): 

“the ‘soul trapped in a sword’ idea is a frequent trope in myth and fiction for this very reason. Swords are never given away lightly. Think of the reverence of a knighting ceremony or why we kneel whenever a ceremonial blade is presented to someone or why Samurai’s are dishonored should they be parted from their swords. Think of why oaths sworn on a blade are considered very serious. You are swearing on your own soul.Swords are often present during wedding ceremonies among the nobility whereupon the wife sometimes kisses her husband’s blade and her husband swears his loyalty to his wife on his sword. There is also the custom of the sword and bride ceremony to consider, wherein the bridegroom’s sword takes his place in his absence. Or why a man’s sword is always brought back to his widow should he die. Or why a knight like a member of the Kings Guard or a knight of the Faith pledging service to his lord on his blade is seen as a kind of marriage ceremony. Because swords represent UNIONS. You pledge to take no other duty beyond your lord’s wishes, much like a husband and wife pledge their duty to no other. You are bound, body and spirit, in your oath to one another—on the sword shared between you.” [desidangerous]

remember how the cloaking ceremony in the westerosi wedding ritual symbolizes the man taking the bride under his protection?

in the show, Jaime gave Brienne a full body armor

so Brienne is now walking around literally cloaked in Jaime’s steel and with his sword at her side. 

All of the above is merged together in the two dreams I quoted at the beginning of this post. 

in the first quote she dreams of Jaime in Renly’s place, “fastening a rainbow cloak about her shoulders”. The rainbow cloak is obviously Renly’s kingsguard cloak, but this sounds a lot like a wedding ceremony, too. Especially considering Brienne’s romantic feelings for Renly.

in the second quote she dreams of Red Ronnet, the suitor who rejected her so cruelly, which proves how that failed betrothal still haunts her—not because she cared for Ronnet in particular but because Brienne is a romantic and was even more so at 13 and Ronnet destroyed her hope of having, eventually, a happily ever after with someone who loves her. 

Then suddenly Ronnet changes into Jaime as he walks away from her and she’s starts to desperately scream for him and wakes up.

This shows how Brienne already subconsciously associates Jaime with marriage, but has internalized so much insecurity that even in her dreams Jaime rejects her.

Which is why “a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the girl. I have to find his honor”: Brienne thinks the only way she can make Jaime “come back for her” is to be a good knight for him. Keep her promise and find his honor. Since romance (the rose) was tossed in her face and used to hurt and humiliate her, she will only care for swords, because swords she can handle; she’s good at it. I think this quote wonderfully depicts Brienne’s complex vulnerability and how she still longs for something she claims she doesn’t care for, while also being completely and sincerely committed to the True Knight persona she chose to embody.

oh, and of course, “the Kingslayer’s whore”.

and Hyle Hunt, who represents Brienne’s chance for… I guess normalcy, in the form of a married life with someone who isn’t her One True Love, but is somewhat decent enough to form a family with. Something that she’s probably going to consider for a while and reject, but whose lesson is “yes, marriage can be an option for you if you want it to be”.

This could be just foreshadowing of Brienne’s romantic feelings for Jaime, but the recurring theme of Brienne’s suitors / broken betrothals, her virginity, her absolute certainty that she will never get married, and her being house Tarth’s only heir makes me think marriage is a central theme in her arc that will come to a resolution one way or another.

I know that the show is 100% responsible for this reading because of that awful “you sound like a bloody woman” OOC line back in season 3, but the reason Brienne feels uncomfortable being called a lady is that it was drilled in her mind that she is an ugly cow, a freak of nature who looks absolutely ridiculous in a dress and even more ridiculous if she tries to act ladylike, whose past attempts at being graceful and feminine were only met with relentless, cruel mockery. Because of her body and appearance, Brienne doesn’t feel like the “lady” role is available to her, because the notion of femininity and ladyship in westeros is awfully restrictive and limited to those who met very specific beauty and behavior standards. That’s why she chose a man’s occupation—her options are so limited. Being a female warrior ain’t easy: she’s still mocked and marginalized and considered a freak, and male coworkers give her hell… but at least her big, strong, muscular body isn’t a hindrance in battle, but an asset. And she’s GOOD at it. Like, REALLY good.

Having chosen a warrior’s life, Brienne sort of settles down and accepts that the “lady” path is forever precluded to her. It’s a sacrifice (deep down she still longs for romance and marriage, not unlike Sansa), but at least she knows who she is and has a purpose in life. Being called lady puts all those painfully earned certainties in question all over again, brings back bad memories and past traumas, reminds her of the things she thinks she’ll never have, and of the fact that her gender will always be the wrong one for the path she chose.

A popular speculation is that it was one of Egg’s sisters, either Daella or Rhae, who married the lord of Tarth, since we have no canon info on their offspring. If that’s the case, then Galladon’s supposed claim to the IT would be weaker than Robert’s, as Rhaelle Targaryen was Robert’s grandmother whereas Daella/Rhae would be Galladon’s great-grandmother**, and also, and more importantly, a daughter comes before an uncle/aunt in the line of succession; so Rhaelle, as Aegon V’s daughter, inherits before Rhae or Daella, Aegon’s sisters, and daughters of an earlier king.

** not sure of the timeline: I guess there’s the possibility that Rhae, born in 201~209 according to the wiki, had Selwyn (who is 54 in AFFC) when she was somewhere between 36 and 45 years old which would make her Galladon’s grandmother, but wouldn’t it be mentioned somewhere that Brienne’s grandma was a Targaryen princess??? More to the point, wouldn’t Selwyn have an even bigger claim than his son and heir; wouldn’t he be murdered too?

The other theory I’ve read (once again, credit to the the always mindblowing @justthetippihedren​) is that Galladon (and Brienne)’s connection to the Targaryens comes from their unknown and unnamed mother, who would be a descendant (daughter?) of either Daella or Rhae, or, more interestingly, Maegor, Aerion Brightflame’s son and Egg’s nephew. Wait, Maegor who? We have very little info about this dude except his claim was passed over in favor of his uncle Aegon in the great council that followed Maekar I’s death in 233, because he was an infant at the time. We don’t know what happened to him, whether he married or had any children or lived to adulthood at all. Which is very suspicious, especially in light of George’s compulsion to write loads of unnecessary Targaryen backstory. Maegor son of Aerion could have been king in Egg’s place if he had been older, yet we know next to nothing about him. Even if he’s not connected to Brienne, I bet he’s going to pay off in some other way. He’s just too much of a blind spot.