"Jaime Lannister sends his regards"

[Seams]

12 hours ago, Dofs said:

I am not sure what is there to argue, we literally see the whole dialogue of Jaime with Roose and Jaime commenting it in his thoughts. From the way Roose handled Jaime, Jaime understood that Roose is switching sides and Roose then flat out explains why to Jaime. And that's it, that's all Jaime knew. How exactly would that happen Jaime didn't know and didn't seem to care. The final exchange where Jaime asks to send his regards to Robb is Jaime simply joking based on Roose asking Jaime, his 'enemy', to give his regards to Tywin, his 'enemy'. Jaime found it ironic and asked for the same thing. Unless, of course, one assumes that Roose and Jaime also planned to kill Tywin.

I also agree with this. I went back and re-read the ASoS chapter last night, where Roose is hosting Jaime and Brienne at dinner at Harrenhal. At the point when Jaime figures out that Roose is interested in Lannister friendship (instead of Lannister enmity), he immediately wonders whether Brienne is picking up on the same clues that he has just put together. There was no chance to discuss any details of Roose's change of loyalties (and Roose might prefer to keep his cards close to the vest anyway) because Brienne was in the room.

So both Roose and Jaime are trying to keep Brienne from seeing that Roose has changed sides. Once Roose has established an understanding with Jaime - that Jaime will report that the maiming of his arm was the work of Vargo Hoat, not Roose - then Roose tells Brienne that he will be sending Jaime onward to King's Landing, but Brienne will not be going with him. At that point, you could make the case that Brienne should have put two and two together and seen Roose as a traitor. The logic would be:

1) Roose represented himself as loyal to Robb.

2) He was sending Jaime to Tywin so he would not be accused of having amputated Jaime's arm.

3) Although this was at odds with Robb's desire to have the Kingslayer returned, Brienne might reason, at least it followed Catelyn's hope to exchange Jaime for Sansa and Arya.

4) Brienne should accompany Jaime to ensure that the terms of Catelyn's gesture were honored by the Lannisters.

5) Roose was going to give Brienne into Vargo Hoat's custody as a hostage for ransom. Hoat is the very man who had (by Roose's prior logic) created this Jaime-related dilemma for Roose.

6) Roose was not loyal to Robb, not loyal to the Starks, not returning Jaime for the reasons he had outlined.

At the dinner, Roose also informed Jaime and Brienne that Robb had married someone other than a Frey and that Tyrion had married Sansa. Because Tyrion's marriage to Sansa seems like a broken promise to Brienne, Roose tells Brienne that Lannisters lie. So another coulda-shoulda-woulda for Brienne here might be that Catelyn's expectation of a prisoner exchange with the Lannisters was null and void, and that Brienne should return to Riverrun with Jaime. Since she's not the POV here, we don't know if that was going through her mind as all this information came her way, but Roose forecloses her ability to act on these thoughts by quickly informing her that Jaime will be going to King's Landing and she will be a hostage. So she has different worries to sort out.

For what it's worth, some details of the dinner DO vaguely hint at the red wedding. Before this chapter, Roose's cupbearer at Harrenhal was Arya. Now his cupbearer is Elmar Frey. Just as Jaime figures out that Roose is a friend to the Lannisters, Roose tells Elmar to carve some slices off the roast for the guests. This meat is interesting because GRRM does not indicate what kind of meat it is, contrary to his usual descriptive details about all meals. Brienne "made no move to eat." Jaime "stared at the meat and realized there was no way to cut it, one-handed." Roose "cut his meat methodically, the blood running across his plate." So Roose eats the meat and the others don't or can't eat it.

I think the reference to Roose's plate is an allusion to armor. We know that the mail under Roose's sleeve will be Catelyn's first clue that something bad is about to happen at the red wedding. I believe Robb's death at the red wedding is a symbolic version of the Boar's Head Festival, an ancient pagan ritual about the end of winter and the return of the sun in the new year. So the unnamed "roast" may have been a roast Robb/boar, another sacrifice of the sacred king like the boar-related death of King Robert.

So GRRM has given us a few hints, even if Jaime and Brienne don't pick up on them.

 

[The Sunland Lord]

This line can be fatal to Jaime. 

[MostlyMoody]

6 hours ago, Castellan said:

We have seen and heard what Jaime hears from the Freys and Roose so the question is - just how dumb is Jaime? Not that dumb. As soon as he hears about Robb betraying the marriage pact he must know his reign is over. And, as I said, that chapter where he hears the news reads quite consistently with him knowing that Robb will have been confronted  at the wedding.

Jaime reflects as much when he hears that Robb married Jeyne.

"Jaime felt almost sorry for Robb Stark. He won the war on the battlefield and lost it in a bedchamber, poor fool."

And the chapter where he learns the news of the Red Wedding doesn't really exist. We get his reflections after hearing the news, and none of it indicates he knew the Red Wedding would happen. His main concern at that point is comforting Brienne, as much as Jaime Lannister can comfort anyone.

And please don't say that Jaime should feel more broken up about the news, he couldn't even muster a sad thought about his son's death in the very same chapter.

Edit: Re-reading the two chapters has really surprised me at the existence of this thread/discussion. It's incredibly obvious that Jaime had no prior knowledge of the Red Wedding.

[Dofs]

19 hours ago, Castellan said:

The fact that we hear about their getting the news in retrospect is neat way of avoiding showing Jaime's inner thoughts in detail.

There is no way Jaime could have found out the news in real time in any of his chapters time-wise, so George would have had to write another Jaime chapter solely for the reaction to Red Wedding, which would a huge waste of space.