Jaime broke an oath when he killed Aerys

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 minute ago, Kandrax said:

Even if he orders them to kill their kin or break guest right?

Yes.

[The Sunland Lord]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

We're told that knights are anointed to become knights.  It isn't the regent who anoints them, it's the church.  Just as British king or queen  is annointed by the church rather than parliament.    They answer to a higher authority than the crown.

When the KG fail to act; then the Faith Militant arises to remove a king who is not a king.  Whatever the KG has become; I think it was not only put in place to protect the office of the sovereign but to act as safeguard for the realm as well.   The KG is a higher office than acting as thugs and bully boys for the crown.

The Faith Militant was destroyed by Maegor. The Faith Militant is a radical wing of the Faith of the Seven, not presenting the Faith as a whole. At the time when Jaime slew Aerys, the Faith Militant was dead, or, at best, in hibernation, until Cersei allow them the power again.

That being said, this is not a higher authority. The Faith at the moment doesn't have that much power, so their role is more ceremonial.  

[Curled Finger]

3 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Jaime is, so far in the series, one of the super-privileged characters, both by the author and in the society he lives and works.

Impregnates his sister three times, participates in one of the biggest deceptions in the Seven Kingdoms, and has, no more and no less, killed the previous king he served. And yet, he stays unpunished by this society (for these crimes in specific). Seems like he is not just Tywin's golden boy, but the author's golden boy too.

Now why is this guy super-privileged? Is he in some special category which will serve some greater purpose, or, will only disappoint the readers at the end, we'll see. 

Mind you, the opening post deliberately contains a hard attitude towards Jaime. A good debate needs an opposition and various opinions. 

You brought up some interesting points and I agree completely with the premise that good conversation requires debate.  

I am not much of a debater.  I hated Jamie as much as the next reader until I could see his thoughts.  He makes much of the oaths and vows sworn.  He has not made a complete reversal of his old ways, but he is trying.  Privilege is an accident of birth.  There was a recent topic discussing Robert's influence on Joffrey.  I offered that Joffrey may have always been cruel, but fostering with Tywin would have made him a king.  Here is confused Jamie who was raised by Tywin.  His corruption began very early with Cersei.  It's likely they were isolated and had no other children to play with.   Children are naturally interested in bodies and what their parts do.  A set of lonely twins would certainly make their discoveries together.  They had no mother to influence their decisions or answer their questions--only each other.  I'm no sociologist by any stretch of the imagination.   It's clear Cersei is the dominant force in their relationship.  Where Cersei may have taken on the role of "mothering" or "bossing" Jamie she was only a child, too. She honestly believes that they are 2 halves of a single person.  Cersei was Jamie's primary concern, not any king.  Definitely not a king who hurt his sister who he really thought he was "in love" with.  

Tywin didn't support Jamie's appointment to Aery's Kings Guard and understood it was a cruel strike against him.  All Jamie saw was great honor, not the devastation it brought his father.   Chances are very good that Jamie heard some talk of Tywin's greatness as Hand.  This would stir a longing at the least and perhaps understanding on the high and unlikely end of the this man is my dad spectrum.  Jamie saw and heard Aery's cruelties.   He questioned the rape and beating of Rhaella.  He was probably smart enough to see how Aery's fell to manipulation and agitation and was unable to do anything about that due to his vows as well.  Once the blood began to spill and Jamie was faced with a vow to a king he knew was mad or the love of his father, a tried and true ruler, the choice was obvious.  Jamie did need to make a choice.  He saw a clear and present danger in Aerys and his pyromancers.  Right or wrong, Kings Landing did not burn that day.

I'm not convinced Jamie's breaking his vows had anything to do with privilege.  Aerys had to go.  A duty bound stiff like Stannis even jumped sides.  That says a great deal about the king.  Privilege does not make a person incapable of love, honor or seeing the truth.  

[Kandrax]

17 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Yes.

What about divine wrath

[LynnS]

6 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

The Faith Militant was destroyed by Maegor. The Faith Militant is a radical wing of the Faith of the Seven, not presenting the Faith as a whole. At the time when Jaime slew Aerys, the Faith Militant was dead, or, at best, in hibernation, until Cersei allow them the power again.

That being said, this is not a higher authority. The Faith at the moment doesn't have that much power, so their role is more ceremonial.  

Yes, right.  The resurgence of the Faith Militant now is in response to the sovereign breaking faith.  In other words a king who doesn't protect the people is no king.  Because the sovereign is anointed by the high septon; the faith militant act on that authority.

Suppose that Jaime acted in the manner that Lord Varys suggests; to save KL from the king.  What authority gives Jaime that right?  Jaime may have been appointed to the KG but he is also an anointed knight.       

[The Sunland Lord]

3 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Expanding on the fact that oaths are two-way things…

I’m not sure we know exactly what happens when a King is crowned unless I’m forgetting something. But one of the King’s titles (and implied sworn duty) is Protector of the Realm. If one views protecting the realm as a sworn duty of the king, then Aerys was in gross violation.

I think it’s interesting that Stannis makes Davos swear both to him and to the people. Is Stannis using an oath he was already familiar with? Are the KG sworn to both the king and the people? If so it would mirror what has happened to the NW: the institution came to have priority over the people when the two oaths came into conflict.

Stannis’ defending and saving the realm later becomes the basis of his claim taking priority over being Robert’s heir.

 

ASOS Davos IV

"And do you swear to serve me loyally all your days, to give me honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend my rights and my realm against all foes in battles great and small, to protect my people and punish my enemies?"

 

ASOS Davos VI

"Four of my sons died for you on the Blackwater. I might have died myself. You have my loyalty, always." Davos Seaworth had thought long and hard about the words he said next; he knew his life depended on them. "Your Grace, you made me swear to give you honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend your realm against your foes, to protect your people. Is not Edric Storm one of your people? One of those I swore to protect? I kept my oath. How could that be treason?"

ADWD Davos III

"Robb Stark was my liege lord," said Lord Wyman. "Who is this man Stannis? Why does he trouble us? He never felt the need to journey north before, as best I can recall. Yet he turns up now, a beaten cur with his helm in his hand, begging for alms."

"He came to save the realm, my lord," Davos insisted. "To defend your lands against the ironborn and the wildlings."

 

Interesting. It makes Stannis aware of the needs of the Realm. 

Then again, Davos is not Kingsguard. The Kingsguard is not the Realmsguard. Davos kept his vow, because this vow gave him a wider spectrum of responsibilities. 

[Light a wight tonight]

4 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

A man can knock out another person if he needs to save him from drowning while in water, if the person being in danger can not swim. How is letting this person die a better option? 

Basically, Jaime could have took the best possible care for his king, but he didn't. Keeping him alive still has some hope in it- and keeping Jaime's vows. 

Ever try to knock someone out while you both are in the water? Next to impossible. Under the best dry-land circumstances it's not easy.  Mostly only works in works of fiction. 

As has been pointed out moving an unconscious king out of a Red Keep full of guardsmen isn't going to work. (Hey, you two, help me haul this rolled up tapestry out through the portcullis. We're doing some rearranging while we wait for the Lannister army to show up".)

[The Sunland Lord]

22 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Yes, right.  The resurgence of the Faith Militant now is in response to the sovereign breaking faith.  In other words a king who doesn't protect the people is no king.  Because the sovereign is anointed by the high septon; the faith militant act on that authority.

Suppose that Jaime acted in the manner that Lord Varys suggests; to save KL from the king.  What authority gives Jaime that right?  Jaime may have been appointed to the KG but he is also an anointed knight.       

He is an anointed knight, yes, but before joining the Kingsguard. There are knights in the Night's Watch too. And, it means next to nothing (besides some chatting with other brothers about some past glorious times, perhaps), because the last vow bounds them to the Watch, exactly the way the vow to join the Kingsguard bounds you to serve the King. 

[LynnS]

31 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

He is an anointed knight, yes, but before joining the Kingsguard. There are knights in the Night's Watch too. And, it means next to nothing (besides some chatting with other brothers about some past glorious times, perhaps), because the last vow bounds them to the Watch, exactly the way the vow to join the Kingsguard bounds you to serve the King. 

I'm curious why Martin makes such a big deal out of anointed knights and kings.  It's mentioned over and over in the text, but I think the significance is going unnoticed.  The authority of knights and kings is conferred by the church and both are answerable to the gods. 

[The Sunland Lord]

1 minute ago, LynnS said:

I'm curious why Martin makes such a big deal out of anointed knights and kings.  It's mentioned over and over in the text, but I think the significance is going unnoticed.  The authority of knights and kings is conferred by the church and both are answerable to the gods. 

Them being responsible in the eyes of Gods might be your answer to your question of higher authority than the monarch.

That depends, of course, on how much the person taking the oath takes the Gods seriously, or how powerful these Gods really are. 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, The Sunland Lord said:

He is an anointed knight, yes, but before joining the Kingsguard. There are knights in the Night's Watch too. And, it means next to nothing (besides some chatting with other brothers about some past glorious times, perhaps), because the last vow bounds them to the Watch, exactly the way the vow to join the Kingsguard bounds you to serve the King. 

Just to clarify - they have sworn all those vows and certainly can be conflicted about which to follow when there is a conflict between them. I mean, it is quite likely that especially a man like Dunk is going to be torn between his knightly ideals and his duty as a Kingsguard when he gets to that point in his career. Being loyal to Aegon V is not necessarily always going to be 'the right thing to do'. I mean, can anybody imagine that Dunk liked fighting a trial-by-combat against the Laughing Storm?

But it is quite clear that nobody in Westeros thinks a Kingsguard has the right to break his KG vows in favor of other vows, just as they don't think anyone has the right to break the NW vows. If you do that you are universally seen as scum or worse.

40 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm curious why Martin makes such a big deal out of anointed knights and kings.  It's mentioned over and over in the text, but I think the significance is going unnoticed.  The authority of knights and kings is conferred by the church and both are answerable to the gods. 

That doesn't make any sense. One can make a point that the (Targaryen) kings prior to Maegor were kings or emperors rivaling with the High Septon/Pope for supremacy. But Maegor broke the Faith. He really broke them. Afterwards he was Henry VIII, the Faith the Anglican Church, and the High Septon the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The representatives of the Faith fulfill certain functions in the royal theater, but they are controlled by the king. George is pretty much clear about that.

And as for knights: Every knight can make a knight. It is nice and all to have a religious ceremony but that isn't really necessary. There is a remarkable difference between the average knight and the Warrior's Sons who truly serve only the Seven...

[Lollygag]

1 hour ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Interesting. It makes Stannis aware of the needs of the Realm. 

Then again, Davos is not Kingsguard. The Kingsguard is not the Realmsguard. Davos kept his vow, because this vow gave him a wider spectrum of responsibilities. 

That's not what happened here. Davos was sworn to obey Stannis. Davos was sworn to protect the people. He couldn't do both. He broke his oath to obey Stannis while keeping his oath to protect because keeping both was not possible and he had to choose. Stannis understands the conflict and he chooses which has the priority and he decides that Protecting the Realm/People should be more important.

This passage takes place in ASOS which is when the reader is exposed to Jaime's backstory with Aerys hence we are supposed to compare the two (and there are a lot of comparisons). Jaime could keep his KG oath or his knight's oath, but not both. Like Davos, he chose and made the same choice.

ASOS Jaime II

For a moment Jaime thought Brienne might strike him. A step closer, and I'll snatch that dagger from her sheath and bury it up her womb. He gathered a leg under him, ready to spring, but the wench did not move. "It is a rare and precious gift to be a knight," she said, "and even more so a knight of the Kingsguard. It is a gift given to few, a gift you scorned and soiled."

A gift you want desperately, wench, and can never have. "I earned my knighthood. Nothing was given to me. I won a tourney mêlée at thirteen, when I was yet a squire. At fifteen, I rode with Ser Arthur Dayne against the Kingswood Brotherhood, and he knighted me on the battlefield. It was that white cloak that soiled me, not the other way around. So spare me your envy. It was the gods who neglected to give you a cock, not me."

 

 

[Trigger Warning]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I'm curious why Martin makes such a big deal out of anointed knights and kings.  It's mentioned over and over in the text, but I think the significance is going unnoticed.  The authority of knights and kings is conferred by the church and both are answerable to the gods. 

I feel like he's just borrowing from the heavy involvement of religion in such things from his historical influences without really giving the equivalent importance to the actual establishment of the Faith of the Seven, if anything I feel like having the church be a much more powerful influence in the politics of the Seven Kingdoms would have made the intrigue of the series much more interesting as a whole, it's like he wants to have that similar faith of the seven/divine right tie in with knights and kings as in Medieval Europe and yet isn't really committing to it but I dunno, maybe the faith will become more influential down the line with the resurgence of their militant arm and what is basically the end of days. 

[Lord Lannister]

The stigma attached to Jaime for killing Aerys really felt forced as a plot convenience. The same people willing to rebel against the Mad King suddenly treat the mad who killed him like scum. By rebelling they're just as much oathbreakers as Jaime was. Such a widespread hatred for the man who killed a king whose primary means of securing loyalty was blackmail and fear just seems odd. Kingslayer should've been used as an honorific with a bitter aftertaste more than an insult.

[snow is the man]

He didn't kill aery's because he was ordered to kill his father. I think he would have just ignored that order but not killed aery's.

He killed aery's because he was going to kill hundreds of thousands of people. What I never understood was why jaime never told anyone. He would have been considered a hero or at least not hated like he is.

Once I found out that was why he killed aerys I thought he had every right too

[snow is the man]

14 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

The stigma attached to Jaime for killing Aerys really felt forced as a plot convenience. The same people willing to rebel against the Mad King suddenly treat the mad who killed him like scum. By rebelling they're just as much oathbreakers as Jaime was. Such a widespread hatred for the man who killed a king whose primary means of securing loyalty was blackmail and fear just seems odd. Kingslayer should've been used as an honorific with a bitter aftertaste more than an insult.

He was sworn to protect aery's. That was his entire purpose and he betrayed it. That said I think he should have said why he did it and then people would have likely never called him king slayer. Without knowing why he killed aerys it seems like he betrayed his oath in the worst way.

Also aerys was actually known to be quite generous with his supporters.

 

[Lord Lannister]

1 hour ago, snow is the man said:

He was sworn to protect aery's. That was his entire purpose and he betrayed it. That said I think he should have said why he did it and then people would have likely never called him king slayer. Without knowing why he killed aerys it seems like he betrayed his oath in the worst way.

Also aerys was actually known to be quite generous with his supporters.

 

Well all those lords swore oaths of fealty and their purpose was to serve their lands in the name of the king. Oh I agree he should've told. Another reason I think it's just a plot convenience. If Jaimie had just said, hey he was going to burn them all. There's all the wildfire, everyone would've just gone "Oh, good job. You're savior of the city now."

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

I feel like he's just borrowing from the heavy involvement of religion in such things from his historical influences without really giving the equivalent importance to the actual establishment of the Faith of the Seven, if anything I feel like having the church be a much more powerful influence in the politics of the Seven Kingdoms would have made the intrigue of the series much more interesting as a whole, it's like he wants to have that similar faith of the seven/divine right tie in with knights and kings as in Medieval Europe and yet isn't really committing to it but I dunno, maybe the faith will become more influential down the line with the resurgence of their militant arm and what is basically the end of days. 

Any knight can make a knight, but not every knight is anointed with oils by the High Septon.  So the question is what does that confer on the knight?  Nothing?  When Bran passes through the Black Gate he is also anointed by a drop of salt water onto his forehead.   Jaime is an anointed knight.  So I think there is a higher obligation to his oath as a knight to the gods than his oath to the king as a man.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

The stigma attached to Jaime for killing Aerys really felt forced as a plot convenience. The same people willing to rebel against the Mad King suddenly treat the mad who killed him like scum. By rebelling they're just as much oathbreakers as Jaime was. Such a widespread hatred for the man who killed a king whose primary means of securing loyalty was blackmail and fear just seems odd. Kingslayer should've been used as an honorific with a bitter aftertaste more than an insult.

People see a difference between the vows of a Kingsguard (or Night's Watch) and the run-of-the-mill vows a lord swears to his king. The Kingsguard join a military order with the specific purpose to only and exclusively serve and protect the king. They are not the average guy, they are the elite, loyal to the death and then some.

If anyone breaks that pledge people simply do not shrug it off.

In addition, Jaime simply had no issues with King Aerys, unlike men like Robert Baratheon or Eddard Stark who sure as hell had a reason to rebel. Treason isn't a virtue. It is a vice and a crime. This society is based on the principle that men fulfill their promises and vows.

[Lady Dacey]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

This society is based on the principle that men fulfill their promises and vows.

This. This is very inportant in understanding everything in the books. While we have characters constantly repeating "words are wind" we must understand that Westeros is a feudal society. Social contract is strict and social mobility is slow if a thing at all. The forces of tradition, religion and the threat of violent retaliation keep the wheel spinning. In a world where 99% of the population is illiterate "vow" and "oath" are the markers that discern between a word-of-mounts agreement and a "true contract". If someone doesn't do what they said they'd do they are deemed unreliable and it can cause some angry reactions, but it's now unlawful... while if someone doesn't keep a vow or oath they are an oathbreaker, they're breaking the law and should be sentenced to some sort of punishment for what they did - from being partially dispossessed to being sent to the wall to being killed. The fact that Jaime broke a vow to protect and then escaped this "clause" makes people despise him.