was Jaime ever really an 'evil' person (so is it really a redemption arc)

[Jorah Friendzone]

He didn't save the city, he saved Tywin, the Mad King had commanded him to kill his own father.

[The Dragon King]

I'm forgetting something. Did Jaime and Cersei knew about the stabbing attempt on Bran? The stabbing attempt on Bran was the reason why Tyrion was arrested by Cat. But since Joffrey was later discovered by Tyrion to be the true culprit, I don't think Jaime knew, that's why he was so worked up when Tyrion was arrested.

That of course, doesn't excuse him from pushing Bran out of the window, but it explains why he's still eager to attack Ned.

If Bran talks about what he saw it could very much mean the death of Jaime, Cersei, and all their children. I can't fault Jaime for that.

[Baron Fell]

Not sure about anyone else but I found that almost as soon as Jaime became a POV character I liked him much much better. But here's a question, is he really in the middle of a redemption arc?

To truly need redeeming he would have had to have done some pretty evil things in the first place, and though he's done bad things, his reasoning behind it kind of removes from the evilness. Take his 3 most 'evil' deeds.

1. Killing Aerys - yes he swore to protect him and all that but really, Aerys was horrible and clearly insane. And at the time he was demanding Jaime to bring him his father's head, so it is kind of understandable that Jaime killed him.

when he gets drunk by cat he says killing arys was his finest moment which i agree because it is then that he fofills his vows to the gods to be good and he saves the people from the fire tywin sorta negates that but still better quick then burning

[The Wolves]

If Bran talks about what he saw it could very much mean the death of Jaime, Cersei, and all their children. I can't fault Jaime for that.

I can certainly fault Jamie for what he did. And Jamie didn't care about those kids when he pushed Bran, it was about himself and Cersei continuing to screw each other. Anyways they could have scared Bran into being quiet or made up a story to explain what they were doing, Bran was 7yrs old all he did was get a glimpse of what the twin psychos were doing Jamie had no right to try and attempt to kill a child cause he wanted some from his sister who was married

[DraculaAD1972]

With Jamie we must distinguish an evil act from an evil nature. Jamie has done evil but he is not evil. The bastard of bolton is evil - a psychopath - whereas Jamie is selfish and ruthless.

So he is not evil but it really is a redemptive arc.

[Le Cygne]

GRRM on the matter:

Obviously a lot of people, when Jaime throws Bran out the window, and we like Bran, we've seen his good points, tend to think that makes Jaime a bad guy. But then you understand, if you understand the situation, if Bran goes back and tells what the saw, and is believed, Jaime will be put to death, his sister will be put to death, and there's an excellent chance that his own children will be put to death.

So I said to my friend, what would you do if some other eight year old kid was in a position to say something and you knew that would mean the death of your own young daughter. And he said, that eight year old kid is dead! And this is what we would consider a moral man.

So how do you make that choice? The abstract of the morality vs. the lives of your own children. I mean, I don't know that I'm a proselytizer who says this is the answer to that, but I have to question the painful, difficult question, the difficulty of the choice, that's what I think makes powerful fiction.

http://www.huffingto..._n_1854918.html

[The Dragon King]

I can certainly fault Jamie for what he did. And Jamie didn't care about those kids when he pushed Bran, it was about himself and Cersei continuing to screw each other. Anyways they could have scared Bran into being quiet or made up a story to explain what they were doing, Bran was 7yrs old all he did was get a glimpse of what the twin psychos were doing Jamie had no right to try and attempt to kill a child cause he wanted some from his sister who was married

How do you know what was going on in Jaime's head? The fact is that their lives were at risk if Bran lives, it doesn't matter if his previous actions were wrong, at that moment his whole family is at risk and the action he took was the best way of preventing the destruction of House Lannister.

[LeoSuperstar]

How do you know what was going on in Jaime's head? The fact is that their lives were at risk if Bran lives, it doesn't matter if his previous actions were wrong, at that moment his whole family is at risk and the action he took was the best way of preventing the destruction of House Lannister.

I agree. While no one ever has the "right" to kill children, it's perfectly understandable why he tried.

[Kolantero]

So I said to my friend, what would you do if some other eight year old kid was in a position to say something and you knew that would mean the death of your own young daughter. And he said, that eight year old kid is dead! And this is what we would consider a moral man.

So how do you make that choice? The abstract of the morality vs. the lives of your own children. I mean, I don't know that I'm a prostelitizer who says this is the answer to that, but I have to question the painful, difficult question, the difficulty of the choice, that's what I think makes powerful fiction.

Jaime didn't really care about his children though. I doubt that he even thought of their safety when he pushed Bran. He was probably doing it to secure himself and Cersei who are both adults and got into the situation by their own actions which sounds a lot less valiant than securing the lives of the innocent children.

[Le Cygne]

Jaime didn't really care about his children though. I doubt that he even thought of their safety when he pushed Bran. He was probably doing it to secure himself and Cersei who are both adults and got into the situation by their own actions which sounds a lot less valiant than securing the lives of the innocent children.

That quote was from GRRM himself, though, and he's the one who brings up Jaime and the children. I agree they both got themselves into that, but do we know for sure he didn't do it for the children? I don't know that we can say that.

And I think perhaps his point was, when it comes to making a choice like that, who knows what any of us would do. And what we do may be wrong. I think what Jaime did was wrong, why is anyone he cares about more important than Bran.

I love the way he set this up in the story:

Catelyn, ACOK:

“Yours was the hand that threw him.”

Jaime, ASOS:

“I’ve lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I’d slide between my sister’s thighs to make her wet.”

[Harvey Wargbanger]

That quote was from GRRM himself, though, and he's the one who brings up Jaime and the children. I agree they both got themselves into that, but do we know for sure he didn't do it for the children? I don't know that we can say that.

And I think perhaps his point was, when it comes to making a choice like that, who knows what any of us would do. And what we do may be wrong. I think what Jaime did was wrong, why is anyone he cares about more important than Bran.

That's the excuse Cersei usually comes up with to justify one of her appalling devious schemes. "I'm just a mother protecting my son. What mother wouldn't do anything to save her cub..." blah blah retch.

Stuart

[littleRickon]

So what if we turn the tables? Your or your friends (or GRRM's friend's) kid is killed by a man who had no other choice than his own family's life or killing that kid. How do you react? That man is dead, right? You are right in killing him. Because what he did was evil.

If the fact that Jamie actively broke the laws to produce a situation in which it is his family's life or an innocent child's life makes his killing the child less evil, then certainly his involvement in the former crimes has to seen as more evil. If killing Bran wasn't extremely evil, than having an affair with the queen was, because it lead to that.

Kind of like a drunk driving accident. Surely you aren't as much responsible for causing an accident while drunk, as your consciousness is on standby, but that is why you don't drink and drive in the first place. Somewhere along the way there was a conscious decision to break the rules for your own good, at the risk of innocents.

[ShowOverBooks]

You don't mitigate one evil by committing another.

Three strikes, and he's EVIL!

[Winter's Knight]

RE: the GRRM quote.

I think one should exercise caution when looking to the author while interpreting hir works. Take for instance the fact that C.S. Lewis adamantly denied that his Narnia series was meant as an allegory for Christianity, despite the fact that the books all but name Aslan as Jesus. Or his views on Susan and her eventual maturing.

Another example would be Meyer's opinion that Edward is the ideal boyfriend, despite his covering all the sectors on the Domestic Violence wheel.

Now, accepting that Martin is a much better writer than the examples I provided, he still does on occasion seem to contradict the text-as when he says that Sansa misremembered the name of Joff's sword when it was actually Arya who did so. Or his stating that Sansa had a part in Ned's downfall when the text itself contradicts this. Then there are his own personal opinions which some readers no doubt disagree with, such as his characterising the Dany/Drogo relationship as romantic.

So, I put it that perhaps, in certain cases, authorial interpretation is not necessarily the final word on a subject so debateable as the rightness of child-defenestration. Besides, when Cersei I-send-spying-maids-to-Qyburn Lannister thinks you've gone too far, there might be something amiss.

[Daphne23]

So, I put it that perhaps, in certain cases, authorial interpretation is not necessarily the final word on a subject so debateable as the rightness of child-defenestration. Besides, when Cersei I-send-spying-maids-to-Qyburn Lannister thinks you've gone too far, there might be something amiss.

I completely agree. I find that GRRM quote baffling because not only does Jaime never consider the risk to his three children in his PoV, he also makes it clear later on in the series how little they matter to him. The best you can say of him in this situation is that he feared for Cersei's life and was protecting her. It's also unclear - if this is the interpretation we're to put on his decision - why Cersei disagrees with it. Cersei not only countenances the deaths of innocent people later in the series, but is much more concerned to protect her three children than Jaime, so if this is his reasoning, you'd think she'd be all for the defenestration. Instead, she rightly tells Jaime it was a stupid thing to do and that they could have frightened Bran into silence. 'The things I do for love' doesn't mean Jaime is doing what Cersei wants in this scene; he's protecting himself and protecting Cersei, hence 'for love'.

Just as Theon's role in the murder of the miller's boys cannot be erased or excused, I don't think Jaime should be excused his attempted murder of Bran. He may become 'redeemed', if that means becoming a man who would never do something so horrendous again, change his ways, do only good (although I haven't seen much evidence for that so far) but he can never undo what he did.

(And I do quite like Jaime as a character, although my continued liking probably depends on the next book and if his somewhat unimpressive attempts at self-improvement step up a gear.)

[mcb]

I agree. While no one ever has the "right" to kill children, it's perfectly understandable why he tried.

As no one ever used "I don't understand why Jaime tried to murder Bran" as an argument, the above is really a redundant message from Captain Obvious. We all understand, honestly.

How do you know what was going on in Jaime's head? The fact is that their lives were at risk if Bran lives, it doesn't matter if his previous actions were wrong, at that moment his whole family is at risk and the action he took was the best way of preventing the destruction of House Lannister.

Which would be worth something if not for the fact that Jaime himself had done everything to put the Lannisters' reputation, positions and even lives in jeopardy. "I needed to murder a witness of my crimes" is not a mitigating circumstance, FFS.

[LeoSuperstar]

As no one ever used "I don't understand why Jaime tried to murder Bran" as an argument, the above is really a redundant message from Captain Obvious. We all understand, honestly.

Which would be worth something if not for the fact that Jaime himself had done everything to put the Lannisters' reputation, positions and even lives in jeopardy. "I needed to murder a witness of my crimes" is not a mitigating circumstance, FFS.

So your best suggestion for what Jaime should do in that situation is not being in that situation in the first place? Nice.

[ShowOverBooks]

So your best suggestion for what Jaime should do in that situation is not being in that situation in the first place? Nice.

Nice, indeed.

Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.

[Where Boars Glow]

Nice, indeed.

Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.

Unless you can figure out a way to not get caught? I don't think anyone does a crime thinking....well only a matter of time before i have to turn myself in.

[LeoSuperstar]

Unless you can figure out a way to not get caught? I don't think anyone does a crime thinking....well only a matter of time before i have to turn myself in.

:agree: