Is Brienne of Tarth morally grey?

[Joy Hill]

14 hours ago, UnFit Finlay said:

That's a good point.

It also raises the question of whether Lord Selwyn could be held accountable for Brienne's actions. Swearing allegiance to Renly was one thing, he was Lord Paramount of the Stormlands but to Catelyn Stark? Without even discussing it with her father? We've seen other instances where one persons actions have reflected on their liege lord and it could easily be taken as a treasonous act by her entire House.

It doesn't change my opinion of Brienne really but it does make me feel for her father. He clearly loves her dearly but she barely even thinks about him.

I agree. And I wonder if Brienne ever bothered to send a raven to her father ("Just so you know, I'm no longer a captive of the Bloody Mummers and I'm still alive, but now I'm going on a quest, which means we're kind of attached to both the Starks and Lannisters. Or perhaps we'll be considered ennemies by both of them. You might not hear from me for years, maybe forever."). However, I think Brienne spends a fair amount of time thinking about her father : how he deserves a better daughter than a freak like her, how he kept her safe, how a part of her wants to go back to him. 

I wonder what will happen to Selwyn now that he's a captive of fAegon&co. Will he be doomed because of a rumor that his daughter is the Kingslayer's whore?

 

14 hours ago, TMIFairy said:

Do not know how well was she trained in governance?

Cortnay Penrose remembers her as a girl playing at her father's feet, and Selwyn forced Brienne to attend Renly's sweet sixteen tour, so maybe we can assume she was being trained (just like how Ned made Robb attend his meetings with other lords), but other than that I don't think we have anything. Her failings as heiress may very well be the result of lack of education.

[Pearly]

On 9/2/2017 at 5:00 PM, thehandwipes said:

What's with all the "Is this or that Morally Grey" threads in this forum right now?  It seems like someone's trying to make a point, but what?

 

I agree! Must be a new fashion/trend or something

But to answer the original OP, I don't know if we've seen the extent of Brienne's 'greyness' yet - I would imagine that somewhere in WoW or DoS it will hit - and yes, it would make sense for it to have something to do with Jaime.

[thehandwipes]

15 hours ago, Pearly said:

I agree! Must be a new fashion/trend or something

But to answer the original OP, I don't know if we've seen the extent of Brienne's 'greyness' yet - I would imagine that somewhere in WoW or DoS it will hit - and yes, it would make sense for it to have something to do with Jaime.

Well I'm pretty sure the last two,  "Is Shaggydog morally gray?" and "Grayest characters in ASOIAF" are just troll threads; but still, there's like seven of them now.  The forum can't possibly be figuring out for the first time that GRRM writes "gray" characters.

As to Brienne, George tends to treat characters who let some "Honorable" code of conduct make their decisions for them very poorly.  Characters like Davos who have a good heart but are comfortable navigating the Grayness in them tend to be favored in ASOIAF.  Brienne needs to Gray-up if she's going to make it.  And I think she will.

[Raisin' Bran]

16 hours ago, Pearly said:

I agree! Must be a new fashion/trend or something

But to answer the original OP, I don't know if we've seen the extent of Brienne's 'greyness' yet - I would imagine that somewhere in WoW or DoS it will hit - and yes, it would make sense for it to have something to do with Jaime.

As the new long night comes I believe all characters will darken, whether there is a ally/friend/romantic interest involved or not. More characters will be required to make decisions involving sacrifice (physical or emotional), leaving us to endlessly debate the morality of their choices.

Codes of conduct are great guidelines in ideal situations. The days approaching Westeros will feasibly be the least ideal in the world GRRM created.

[Clegane'sPup]

Brienne has a difficult choice to make. Let's say you get to decide.   Who lives who dies.

[Pearly]

3 hours ago, Raisin' Bran said:

As the new long night comes I believe all characters will darken, whether there is a ally/friend/romantic interest involved or not. More characters will be required to make decisions involving sacrifice (physical or emotional), leaving us to endlessly debate the morality of their choices.

Codes of conduct are great guidelines in ideal situations. The days approaching Westeros will feasibly be the least ideal in the world GRRM created.

You're right of course. The Long Night will place some very interesting challenges ahead.

[Pearly]

4 hours ago, thehandwipes said:

Well I'm pretty sure the last two,  "Is Shaggydog morally gray?" and "Grayest characters in ASOIAF" are just troll threads; but still, there's like seven of them now.  The forum can't possibly be figuring out for the first time that GRRM writes "gray" characters.

As to Brienne, George tends to treat characters who let some "Honorable" code of conduct make their decisions for them very poorly.  Characters like Davos who have a good heart but are comfortable navigating the Grayness in them tend to be favored in ASOIAF.  Brienne needs to Gray-up if she's going to make it.  And I think she will.

1

hmmm... interesting... I see it more focused on short-term vs long-term and 'rigid' vs 'flexible' - flexible and honorable appears to me the 'better' model according to GRRM I think.

[thehandwipes]

17 hours ago, Pearly said:

hmmm... interesting... I see it more focused on short-term vs long-term and 'rigid' vs 'flexible' - flexible and honorable appears to me the 'better' model according to GRRM I think.

Flexible is probably the better term but I was trying to stay with the Grayness theme.  And isn't having a flexible morality is own shade of Gray.

[Pearly]

16 hours ago, thehandwipes said:

Flexible is probably the better term but I was trying to stay with the Grayness theme.  And isn't having a flexible morality is own shade of Gray.

Yes, I think in the end, being flexible with things like morality by necessity renders it grey. 

[Teepee12]

Everyone in the series is morally gray, especially by today's standards. Brienne is no exception.

[The Sleeper]

Martin's seemingly favorite plot point is having characters making grand noble gestures that consistently come back to bite them in the ass. With often horrendous consequences for them and those around them.

Brienne is the epitomy of that. While extraordinarily sympathetic to the reader, she has taken an impossible quest without thinking the ramifications and has served three opposing factions so far. Brienne as an individual may come as faultless, but we are meant to question the ideals she aspires to.

[the trees have eyes]

On 02/09/2017 at 0:01 PM, Stormking902 said:

GRRM has created a story where even the bad guys have good qualities and good guys have some bad qualities thats what makes Asoiaf so awesome IMO, so what is Briennes bad qualties if any.?

None really.  That is why in GRRM world she makes an easy victim and has got herself painted into a corner where she has been given an impossible choice.  Can she find a way out of it or will she have to sacrifice Jaime or Podrick - both blameless of the accusations made agaisnt them (if there are any against Pod other than wrong place, wrong time)?

On 02/09/2017 at 0:35 PM, Horse of Kent said:

She supports a usurper with no reasonable explanation of why he should come ahead of his brother, because she fancies him.

"The things I do for love" hey?  But following the feudal relationships is hardly a matter of questionable morals (Tarth follows Renly as they are sworn to the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands and that is her father's decision not hers).

On 02/09/2017 at 7:56 PM, Lew Theobald said:

She's vengeful.  She remembers slights and holds grudges.  She has vicious qualities.  This is not so much an assessment of her character as a living human being, but foreshadowing of what she might become if her corpse were reanimated as a red wight.

Relentless, vicious, vengeance-zombie, hunter of "kingslayers", wearing a hound helm, mistaken for Sandor.

Say what now?  She wants vengeance for Renly's murder for two reasons: she was sworn to protect him with her life and he was killed literally right in front of her by shadow Stannis, and she loved him.  She did not go looking for the mummers, she went looking for Sansa: the fact that she ran into them twice in their murderous course is not her intent and I think we can allow someone self-preservation.

Vicious?  She is trained to fight.  That doesn't make her vicious.  Is Meera Reed vicious or pudgy Tommen learning to be a knight?

But then I often struggle to understand your point.  Perhaps this was a humourous post?

On 03/09/2017 at 2:45 PM, foxberlin said:

Brienne's cruelty is maybe a more subtle thing, but it is there. You would want to compare the way she treats herself with how she handles others. She is a very caring and protective person concerning others. But her good traits make a halt before her own persona.

How would you think about her, if she sended her daughter on a quest amidst wartimes, good with a sword but without the experience to kill people - only because she is ugly and feels it is unlikly that a man falls for her? Sadly, this is pretty much Brienne's logic concerning herself. That without looks she does not deserved to be loved. Three suitors hardly count as prove for that. Nonetheless she rather enters a world full of violence against woman than a marriage where her feelings might get hurt. This is because she regards her body less and dissociates it from her self. She treats it like an enemy that stands between her desire to be loved and alledged expectations of what earns a man's devotion.

Violence directed against oneself seems to be regarded less cruel than against another person. But it can show the same degree of abusive will. Or it can be styled as something for the greater good like any other form of cruelty towards other people. If Brienne's measures for herself would be transferred onto others, we would hardly see her as an hero. Her self-lessnes is something we love her for, but it is also her worst feature.

One could say the havoc caused by someone who slowly kills himself is little compared to someone who kills other people. But would Brienne die, we have the same tragedy we care for, when someone gets killed. There are people who would feel guilty and robbed of a life with her. Brienne the Blue will cause quite some heartbreaking on her way.

Brienne is not cruel.  Cruelty by definition describes your actions towards others, not your opinion of yourself.  Being selfless is commonly seen as a positive, not a negative.  Brienne is not trying to die but to serve and live honourably and if she dies we should not consider her cruel or selfless / selfish (??) for inadvertently having left behind those who care for her.  Overall I don't understand what you are trying to say.

On 04/09/2017 at 2:49 PM, UnFit Finlay said:

She's Jaime. Well without the incest at least.

She's completely selfless and has the best intentions and motives but she's quickly finding out, as Jaime did, that it is impossible to stay completely pure forever. As others have said, she's being forced to choose between luring Jaime into a trap or letting Pod and Hyle die in his place. It's an impossible choice and one that dishonours her either way. It's the same with her vow to kill Stannis. She made that vow after he used dark magic to kill Renly. Now that he's "The King Who Cared" can she still kill him? I'd even suggest that if he restores the Starks to Winterfell and she kills him, she'll find herself reviled, at least in the North. Theon was never a Stark but is still cursed as a kinslayer, Jaime saved King's Landing and is hated for it, I can totally believe Brienne would be despised as an oathbreaker, even though she specifically excluded Stannis from her vows to Catelyn Stark.

What she does remains to be seen.  There is of course a symmetry between her impossible choice and Jaime's impossible choice in KL all those years ago and it is very GRRM to make us think about whether there is really such a wide gulf between those who live "honourably" and those who don't.  It's easy to live honourably if you don't face any hard choices after all.  He linked these two unlikely bed fellows together for this very reason and the clear water between the vile Kingslayer and the paragon of honesty and honourable intentions seems to be narrowing and getting murkier.  Given her treatment by Biter, how much more punishment can GRRM heap on Brienne at this point?  Forsaking the ideals she lives by would shatter her. Is this really what he is driving her towards?  I hope not, it feels like we need at least a ray of light or two in the darkness descending on Westeros.

11 hours ago, Teepee12 said:

Everyone in the series is morally gray, especially by today's standards. Brienne is no exception.

Everyone's human, now and before.  Why is someone who always tries to do the right thing morally grey "especially by today's standards"?  And if everyone is morally grey why do people keep asking these questions? 

It's much better to ask what if anything she has done that we strongly disapprove of from a moral perspective.  I haven't seen one person make a telling point on that yet.

1 hour ago, The Sleeper said:

Martin's seemingly favorite plot point is having characters making grand noble gestures that consistently come back to bite them in the ass. With often horrendous consequences for them and those around them.

Brienne is the epitomy of that. While extraordinarily sympathetic to the reader, she has taken an impossible quest without thinking the ramifications and has served three opposing factions so far. Brienne as an individual may come as faultless, but we are meant to question the ideals she aspires to.

Yes inded.  I don't know yet if she has been written as a tragic figure (like Catelyn) whose choices and actions are all in the end futile and serve only to damn those she loves (and herself) rather than save them but the AFFC/ADWD developments make it look dangerously that way. 

I'm not sure I have the heart for another remorseless descent into epic tragedy but so far:

1) she joined Renly's Rainbow Guard to protect him but far from that she in fact saw him killed before her eyes and is now reviled as the one who killed him

2) she swore an oath to Catelyn to escort Jaime to KL and return with her daughters but so far has achieved nothing in her quest except mutilation and faces the accusation that she forsook her vows and consorted with her liege lady's enemies

3) she faces an impossible dilemma of allowing an innocent boy, Podrickc Payne, to be executed along with herself or betraying a man who was true to his word, protected her at Harrenhall and KL and asssited her in trying to perform her vow

It looks like a tragedy in full swing....

[Joy Hill]

1 hour ago, the trees have eyes said:

Yes inded.  I don't know yet if she has been written as a tragic figure (like Catelyn) whose choices and actions are all in the end futile and serve only to damn those she loves (and herself) rather than save them but the AFFC/ADWD developments make it look dangerously that way. 

I'm not sure I have the heart for another remorseless descent into epic tragedy but so far:

1) she joined Renly's Rainbow Guard to protect him but far from that she in fact saw him killed before her eyes and is now reviled as the one who killed him

2) she swore an oath to Catelyn to escort Jaime to KL and return with her daughters but so far has achieved nothing in her quest except mutilation and faces the accusation that she forsook her vows and consorted with her liege lady's enemies

3) she faces an impossible dilemma of allowing an innocent boy, Podrickc Payne, to be executed along with herself or betraying a man who was true to his word, protected her at Harrenhall and KL and asssited her in trying to perform her vow

It looks like a tragedy in full swing....

It's possible, but I sure hope not.

 

Very early on in the series, after Bran's fall, we get a hint of what Catelyn can be when influenced by intense grief, which I believe foreshadows LS. There is no similar writing for Brienne, so I hope that means she won't suffer tragedy after tragedy and lose all kindness. 

[Clegane'sPup]

4 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

I expect a new "Hound" to appear; wearing the Helm.  It will be vicious; it will be relentless; it will be ruthless.  Readers will debate whether it is Sandor or whether it is Lem.  No one will suspect that it is Brienne (or UnBrienne), because Brienne has been set up to be the last person one would expect to become that type of monster.

It's just a theory.  I don't particularly want to argue for it either.  When Winds comes out (however many years from now) I'll know if I was wrong.  Or if I was right.  Then maybe I'll tell you how I guessed.

I"m under the impression that Sandor is living at the Quiet Isle in the company of the Elder Brother & and his group. Your post did bring up an interesting thought. Sandor is usually portrayed in someone's PoV. I'm wondering whose it will be if he & Stranger leaves their peaceful environment.

I'm not keen on the unBrienne idea.

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

No .

[the trees have eyes]

8 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

As I said, I am not so much making a "fair" assessment of her character, as I am making a prediction based upon subtle foreshadowing (and no, not merely that she is trained to fight).   And what I expect is a twist -- the opposite of what most readers expect.   And yes, the foreshadowings are subtle, and in many ways at odds with the apparently-dominant aspects of her character.

I expect a new "Hound" to appear; wearing the Helm.  It will be vicious; it will be relentless; it will be ruthless.  Readers will debate whether it is Sandor or whether it is Lem.  No one will suspect that it is Brienne (or UnBrienne), because Brienne has been set up to be the last person one would expect to become that type of monster.

It's just a theory.  I don't particularly want to argue for it either.  When Winds comes out (however many years from now) I'll know if I was wrong.  Or if I was right.  Then maybe I'll tell you how I guessed.

Ok.  I get it now.  I just want to say that you are barking up the wrong tree as the new Hound is clearly going to be unTommen who will turn up riding Ser Pounce.  When GRRM gets round to releasing TWOW this will be shown to be true.  Or maybe not.  Then, as he was the last person people expected to become a monster, I'll explain the subtle foreshadowing that you probably missed.