GRRM quote on jaimes motivation on pushing bran from the tower

[Lord Varys]

13 minutes ago, Geddus said:

The situation was of his own making, he knew the consequences and didn't care (which is obvious since he kept fucking Cersei in "non secure" locations even after what happened with Bran) so no, I don't think his behavior is understandable. It would be if he had unwittingly found himself in a position where he had to choose between Cersei's life and someone else's, but that's not the case.

It is understandable if you can relate (or pretend to relate) to the position he is. It is pretty difficult because what he does actually shows that he has pretty much no concern for anything but his own petty desires, but one can, usually, relate to people who kill other people simply because things they know or threaten to do threaten their very lives - or the lives of people close to them.

That doesn't mean we would (necessarily) do the same thing, of course, but one can understand why they did that.

What I don't understand as a reasonably sane person is why Jaime does most of the things he does. Why did he insist on impregnating Cersei during her marriage to Robert? Why didn't they just fuck and allow Robert's seed to take hold (at least once)?

All that shows - as well as his ridiculously selfish idea of marrying Cersei after his return from the Riverlands (which would have cost his children their claims to the throne and possibly their lives, in the long run) - that this man only thinks about his own selfish desires and acts on whatever has caught his fancy at the moment.

Even his whole 'redemption arc' thing is driven by his desire to be what he once apparently also aspired to be - a great and famous and celebrated knight - but he is not motivated by compassion or a sense of justice. It is all about Jaime Lannister wants Jaime Lannister to be - and he wants to be seen and remembered - as this Goldenhand the Just fellow rather than the Kingslayer.

And his issue with the Kingslayer name is that this is the first time in his life that his golden persona - the fact that he is the Lannister of Casterly Rock, etc. - could not overcome the public image the murder of Aerys II created. After all - Jaime Lannister did it. Shouldn't that be enough for everybody else to accept it as a great and glorious deed?

[Geddus]

I meant "understand" as in "sympathize" or something like that (I'm not sure if that's correct, English is not my first language). Of course intellectually I get that Jaime threw Bran from the tower because the boy had just witnessed him and Cersei commit high treason.

I agree with the rest, Jaime is fundamentally selfish.

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 7/22/2018 at 10:27 PM, Julia H. said:

My problem with this is that Jaime is willing to kill an innocent child to protect his children but, for the same goal, he is not willing to refrain from having sex with Cersei while they are in an unfamiliar territory, where the risk they are taking is (even) higher than at home. How selfish is that?

Very. Jaime was an absolute son of a bitch worthy of a spot in an inner ring of Dante's Inferno, no doubt. At least until he began to try to make amends for his crimes. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 7/23/2018 at 1:46 AM, chrisdaw said:

That was all plain from the text.

 

On 7/23/2018 at 3:48 AM, The Wolves said:

My problem for years concerning GRRM’s quote about Jaime is that this is never shown in the books as the reason he pushed Bran. 

Jaime is shown not to care at all about his children until AFFC and even then it’s a very small measure of concern. Nor does Jaime care seem to concerned over him and Cersei getting caught, they even have sex right next to Robert’ drunken passed out self. He even made a joke about going to war if Robert ever found out. Jaime would LOVE for his and Cersei’s secret to get out. So no I don’t believe that Jaime pushed Bran to save his sister and children when everything since our first introduction of him says opposite of what GRRM is saying. 

I don't think Jaime really did it for his kids. I don't doubt that the George was ask the reader to consider whether it would be better to kill another innocent child than to sacrifice your own--he had Eddard ponder the question later. But I think Jaime did it to protect Cersei and himself. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Never mind. 

[JaneSnow]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, Tyrion really hurt his narcissism there. It is not Brienne, etc. what causes Jaime to distance himself from Cersei, it is the fear that she doesn't love him as much as he loves her.

But Jaime/Cersei wouldn't have been even remotely as poisonous or as bad to the people around them if they had just been able to have a more or less happy romantic relationship without being constantly forced to keep that a secret.

I disagree. Jaime and Cersei's relationship is very unhealthy. She constantly puts him down and often hits him in Feast. 

[goldenlion]

12 minutes ago, JaneSnow said:

I disagree. Jaime and Cersei's relationship is very unhealthy. She constantly puts him down and often hits him in Feast. 

@Lord Varys

its that  cersei didnt actually love jaime that she was a narcissist who used language as she and jaime were reflections of each other and how she saw jaime as an extension of her self saying they were one soul in 2 bodies (and she hated that he stopped looking like her) and he looked back in his life to see when cersei may have just used him to get what she wanted like how she used lancel. while jaime loved cersei genuinely cersei only loved jaime because it was the closest thing she could get to making love to herself. and she preferred the idea of jaime dying with her than the idea of her dying and jaime living without her

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, JaneSnow said:

I disagree. Jaime and Cersei's relationship is very unhealthy. She constantly puts him down and often hits him in Feast. 

He is lacking a hand there, and that's after they no longer get along. Jaime himself is very happy with his role in his relationship with his sister, and she is the only woman he ever wanted.

And the selfish guy is mostly Jaime - 'Let us marry, let us marry, don't care about our children or the throne' - whereas Cersei has at least the decency to care about her children the way she can. And in this world they either stay on the throne or they are killed. There is no middle ground.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, goldenlion said:

@Lord Varys

its that  cersei didnt actually love jaime that she was a narcissist who used language as she and jaime were reflections of each other and how she saw jaime as an extension of her self saying they were one soul in 2 bodies (and she hated that he stopped looking like her) and he looked back in his life to see when cersei may have just used him to get what she wanted like how she used lancel. while jaime loved cersei genuinely cersei only loved jaime because it was the closest thing she could get to making love to herself. and she preferred the idea of jaime dying with her than the idea of her dying and jaime living without her

Jaime is the greater narcissist if you look at things. It is hidden behind his demeanor because he is a very fun to read about, but Jaime is all about him himself. He lived a life of utmost privilege and everything he did he did for the glory of himself. Cersei is for him as much his other half as he is for her. He is technically more faithful to her because he can afford to have no sex outside their relationship (Cersei can't, for obvious reasons).

Any other woman is beneath Jaime Lannister, to the degree that he doesn't even get aroused by other women. He is a very strange person considering that a man like him living in a world like that must have literally have had willing maidens left and right. And he was away from his sister-lover for years and years during the great years of his adolescence (not to mention later at Aerys' court).

But I'm not sure this reflections thing is an odd kind of way for twins to talk about each other - I'm no twin, and Cersei/Jaime are extreme twins in the sense that they are non-identical twins who essentially look like identical twins who are only different by their sex.

The idea that such people consider themselves one being in two bodies or as close as if this was the case, etc. doesn't strike me as particularly odd.

They loved each other since they were small children, and played at sex since they were six years old. They have a strong connection and bond that goes well beyond anything normal lovers feel. They are twin-siblings and lovers.

[goldenlion]

@Lord Varys jaime never held cersei having sex with robert against her it was only having sex with other men after robert died or with men other than jaime and robert that he had a problem with he had a right to expect sexual exclusivity from her once robert died since the only reason jaime joined the kingsguard was because  he wanted to be with her and she was the one who got him to do it.she only liked  jaime when he resembled her . jaime outright points out that cersei wont like jaime looking less like her plus there is the fact cersei showed that she would rather jaime die with her rather than him live on without her when she had qyburn send the letter to jaime. jaime wouldnt want cersei to die when he dies. and cersei constantly lies to him or gaslights him like acting like she wasnt there when jaime pushed bran off the tower that she didnt want jaime to kill bran when she went what are you doing when jaime pulled bran up which was his first instinct cerseis line meant what are you doing saving his life but later on she trys to pretend that she didnt nonverbally send jaime the message to do it that it wasnt her idea and placing the blame solely on jaime

jaime didnt have a problem with robert since he knew she had toit was lancel, osney etc since she didnt have to have to make love with them

and I disagree with the claim that jaime not getting aroused by other women ( till brienne) is somehow means he thinks they are beneath him 

[U. B. Cool]

On 7/23/2018 at 3:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

Jaime doesn't have a strong emotional connection to his children, but he loves his sister. And he likes to live himself. He was protecting himself just as much as Cersei and the children when he tried to kill Bran.

And I daresay the risk of being caught is much higher in the crowded Red Keep than at Winterfell.

If Cersei and Jaime had just been allowed to marry each other (or live together as siblings at CR and everybody is looking the other way when they are fucking) then everything would have been fine, more or less. Neither Jaime nor Cersei would go to so great lengths to protect their families, themselves, and their dirty little secrets.

That is why Jaime is so obsessed with coming clean and finally telling the truth about this. All he ever wanted was to be with Cersei.

A lot of people don't get who they want.  If it's not going to happen go find someone else.  It's fine to want somebody but all the wrongs required to get her and keep her is too much.  They have been balling all through Cersei's marriage to Robert.  Jaime was betraying his boss.  I can understand Cersei, because Robert was not faithful.  But Jaime had no reason to stab Robert in the back like that.  

What happened at Winterfell is the culmination of Jaime's love for Cersei.  

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, goldenlion said:

@Lord Varys jaime never held cersei having sex with robert against her it was only having sex with other men after robert died or with men other than jaime and robert that he had a problem with he had a right to expect sexual exclusivity from her once robert died since the only reason jaime joined the kingsguard was because  he wanted to be with her and she was the one who got him to do it.she only liked  jaime when he resembled her . jaime outright points out that cersei wont like jaime looking less like her plus there is the fact cersei showed that she would rather jaime die with her rather than him live on without her when she had qyburn send the letter to jaime. jaime wouldnt want cersei to die when he dies

I meant that Cersei is a 'weak woman' abandoned by her lover, brother, and protector (over a silly he, Jaime put himself in) who has to look for other men doing things she cannot do herself. Cersei has to ingratiate herself with powerful men to ensure that Robert dies and her son takes the throne. That doesn't happen because she wants it to happen.

Not to mention the following war which also has to be won.

Blaming Cersei for fucking Lancel and the Kettleblacks (which are all the men we have confirmation for, to my knowledge) is pretty hypocritical.

But I think Jaime would actually understand that - what is gnawing at him is the prospect that Cersei is not loving him. That she has fooled him all those years. And that's the seed Tyrion has planted.

10 minutes ago, Italian Tune Up said:

A lot of people don't get who they want.  If it's not going to happen go find someone else.  It's fine to want somebody but all the wrongs required to get her and keep her is too much.  They have been balling all through Cersei's marriage to Robert.  Jaime was betraying his boss.  I can understand Cersei, because Robert was not faithful.  But Jaime had no reason to stab Robert in the back like that.  

What happened at Winterfell is the culmination of Jaime's love for Cersei.  

I was not formulating a defense there. I was just stating the facts - that a lot of the evil deeds and problematic decisions Jaime/Cersei (and other members of House Lannister) make are directly or indirectly consequences of the forbidden twincest constellation (with Robert being Cersei's legal husband).

Psychopaths who are happy with their lives as they are will hurt less people (if hurting people isn't what makes them happy, which isn't the case in all or many psychopaths) than those who are unhappy or in very complicated personal relationships. And Cersei/Jaime have written the latter completely over their entire relationship.

[goldenlion]

@Lord Varys   the problem with the kingslayer nickname isnt because of any narcisissm but because he is shamed for doing the right thing  and how he was treated because of it nobody even asked him why he killed the king he was 17 years old.  

[Lord Varys]

58 minutes ago, goldenlion said:

@Lord Varys   the problem with the kingslayer nickname isnt because of any narcisissm but because he is shamed for doing the right thing  and how he was treated because of it nobody even asked him why he killed the king he was 17 years old.  

He could have talked about it. But he didn't talk about it because it is presumptuous for the wolf to judge the lion. The lion is better than that. Nobody can judge him, so he has no reason to explain himself.

Oh, and I don't believe Jaime killed Aerys for the right reason. He did it because he could and because he wanted to. There was no reason to kill Aerys to save the city. Rossart was dead, and Tywin's men were at the door. Aerys didn't have a remote control hidden in his soiled robes, or anything.

And that shows what Jaime Lannister thinks of one of the most sacred vows in his own culture - he doesn't give shit about them.

[goldenlion]

On 7/24/2018 at 8:33 PM, Lord Varys said:

He could have talked about it. But he didn't talk about it because it is presumptuous for the wolf to judge the lion. The lion is better than that. Nobody can judge him, so he has no reason to explain himself.

Oh, and I don't believe Jaime killed Aerys for the right reason. He did it because he could and because he wanted to. There was no reason to kill Aerys to save the city. Rossart was dead, and Tywin's men were at the door. Aerys didn't have a remote control hidden in his soiled robes, or anything.

And that shows what Jaime Lannister thinks of one of the most sacred vows in his own culture - he doesn't give shit about them.

the only narcissists in thefamily was cersei and tywin and you are ignoring that the other oath of kingsguard is to not reveal the kings secrets, this attempt to twist jaime to a narcissist it reminds me of people trying to act like people would even belive him and neds look showed what to him what other people would think of it   and jaime held back from killing aerys for the entire time he served aerys. the way jaime is treated is another example of demonization.

ned should be blamed for how jaime turned out for it is how he is treated that caused him to be jaded

because for doing the right thing and saving the  city he gest demonized and called an oathbreaker because of assumptions no one bothered asking him why he killed aerys.  not to mention lions and wolves are both beasts that kill in the end ned had a bastard so to jaime acting like ned was all perfectly honorable pisses him off . which is what he meant by how does the wolf judge the lion for as jaime stated at least he stayed faithful to cersei and remember he was talking about the judgement on killing aerys  he was hated for doing his best act before any actually good reasons to hate him like pushing bran off the tower which he had to do to save cersei and this attempt to deny the fact that he did it to protect his loved ones and even then he hesitated and his first instinct was to save bran

@Lord Varys

https://cloaksoiledhim.wordpress.com/home/part-1-in-which-adults-are-not-in-charge/

 Our first sight of Jaime Lannister is of the very picture of privileged arrogance. The twin brother to the queen, the elder son of the richest and most powerful lord in Westeros, a nearly unparalleled swordsman, a strikingly handsome man “with a smile that cut like a knife.” The narrative wastes no time in giving us ample reason to think of Jaime as one of the bad guys. He’s a knight of the Kingsguard best known for having killed the previous king, and while few are brave enough to call him “Kingslayer” to his face, most characters do not hesitate to whisper behind his back. His lover of choice is his sister, and he soon deals a permanently disabling, nearly fatal injury to an innocent little boy to cover up their affair. At the very beginning, he is already seen as a villain, and he does not hesitate to act the part.

 Jaime is known as the youngest Kingsguard knight in the order’s history, having taken the white cloak at age fifteen. This act of record-setting is significant to his development, but even more striking about Jaime’s taking Kingsguard vows is that he is the first heir to a great House to do so. The Kingsguard is a lifelong commitment to service and celibacy. In close to three-hundred years of knights guarding kings, there is no precedent for a knight to be relieved of his white cloak until midway through A Game of Thrones, by which point Jaime has already been a royal bodyguard for all of his adult life, and there is still no precedent for a KG knight to have the option of giving up his cloak on his own terms. Once the white cloak has been fastened to a man’s shoulders, the only way out is to join the Night’s Watch, and the only way out of the Night’s Watch is death. Desertion is a gambit that precious few men survive for long. Under these conditions, the Kingsguard is seen as a prestigious and honorable career for younger sons, especially from minor Houses. It is most certainly not seen as a suitable option for a boy who would otherwise inherit the lordship of Casterly Rock.

 The first question, then, is: what moved that very young boy, who could have been a Lord Paramount, to take those vows at such a young age?

The simple answer is that he had a twin sister.

When Jaime and Cersei were children at Casterly Rock, they were close companions, they spent a lot of time together, and when they were little, they sometimes played together in ways that raised eyebrows. They’d see dogs or horses mating, and they’d imitate what they saw. Their mother witnessed their child’s play and we might say she overreacted. She moved Jaime to another bedchamber well away from Cersei’s, and she placed a guard at Cersei’s door every night. She warned the twins never to engage in such actions again, or she would have to tell their father. We can surmise that the twins were seven years old at the time; as Jaime reports, not long after this event, Joanna died at Tyrion’s birth. Jaime doesn’t remember exactly what they were doing, only their mother’s reaction, and it’s worth noting that whatever they were doing at such a young age was probably no cause for alarm. We’re talking about a pair of seven-year-old twins playing together, and the problem was probably not that they had any idea of what they were doing, or had any intention of carrying on a sexual relationship, so much as that their parents were overwhelmingly focused on the image of the Lannisters. No matter that many other noble Houses probably had young children playing with their siblings in cringeworthy but ultimately harmless ways; Lord Tywin would have rained fire on his children’s heads to keep them from being seen as playing at incest.

 The psychological effect of this separation on the twins is not explored directly in the text, but the general picture is of a pair of siblings who were playing as children often do, and their mother treated them as though their play were some forbidden, secret relationship that had to be hidden from adult eyes. It would not be outside the range of normal for those children to respond to that separation by doubling down on the behavior in question, but also taking extra care to keep their playtime a secret. Their mother soon died, their father never found out about the inappropriate play, and the twins engaged in increasingly scandal-worthy behavior. Jaime doesn’t remember when they started kissing, but “it was always innocent…until it wasn’t.” After their mother died, it seems no one was really paying attention to the twins. Their brother, Tyrion, became aware of the incest at some point, but as he was still a very young child at the time Jaime joined the Kingsguard, it’s not clear whether he knew what his brother and sister were doing until their affair was too far entrenched and the consequences already apparent.

Throughout the twins’ childhoods, their father was Hand of the King under Aerys II. While Lord Tywin was a terrible person in most ways that counted, it must be noted that he was a very capable King’s Hand. Towards the end, King Aerys was so resentful of Tywin they were barely working together, but Ser Ilyn Payne was not wrong to note that Tywin was the one who actually ruled the Seven Kingdoms. (King Aerys had Ser Ilyn’s tongue torn out for making this observation.) This is not only relevant to the amount of time he spent hundreds of miles away from his family, it is crucial to the context in which Jaime became a Kingsguard knight. Lord Tywin intended to make his daughter a queen, so he took 12-year-old Cersei to court with him and kept her at King’s Landing to prepare for a chance to wed her to Prince Rhaegar or perhaps take a chance on Viserys.

 Meanwhile, Jaime went off to squire for Lord Sumner Crakehall, where he was surrounded by other boys and separated from his family. Make no mistake; Tywin was also working on a good marriage arrangement for his son. His idea was for Jaime to wed Lysa Tully, which would have made a nice alliance with the Tullys of Riverrun, but when Jaime stayed with the Tullys, he was much more interested in hearing war stories from Uncle Brynden, Lysa was a shy girl, and she didn’t make much impression on him.

 Maybe Lysa would have turned out better if she’d been married to a handsome, brave boy her own age, rather than Jon Arryn? Maybe the future Lord of Casterly Rock would have been a sufficient distraction from Littlefinger? Realistically, though, Lysa wasn’t into handsome, brave boys, and looking at the adult she became, it’s probably for the best that Jaime didn’t marry her. He possibly owes his life to having dodged that bullet.

While Jaime left the Tullys disappointed, he did extraordinarily well in his training at Crakehall. He won a tourney melee at age thirteen; winning a tourney melee at any age is impressive, but Jaime was fighting against dozens of bigger, stronger men with far more combat experience, and he was the last one standing. His idol was Ser Arthur Dayne, a Kingsguard knight whom most Westerosi agree was the standard against which all other knights are judged. Jaime took part in the battle against the Kingswood Brotherhood outlaws at age fifteen, and for his defense of Lord Crakehall, he was knighted by Ser Arthur Dayne himself. Jaime was doing extremely well for himself and had a brilliant life ahead of him.

 Then he paid a visit to King’s Landing on the way home.

 He wanted to see his sister, and he did. They met in a seedy inn on Eel Alley, where she showed up dressed as a serving girl. When they were alone together, Cersei gave him the news that there was an opening in the Kingsguard, and if Jaime took that opening, then they would be together in King’s Landing and he wouldn’t be married to Lysa Tully. Jaime, at first, was hesitant to get on board with her plan, because he knew he was supposed to inherit the lordship of Casterly Rock. However, he was also a hormonal teenager who’d developed an inappropriate relationship with his twin, and after Cersei spent all night fucking his brains out, Jaime decided the Rock wasn’t so important after all. No, he didn’t need a wife, least of all that boring, giggly Lysa Tully, he didn’t need children who’d call him Father, he didn’t need a castle and lands to manage; he needed proximity to his sister, and at the time, they both assumed she’d be staying in the capital long-term. Under those conditions, a white cloak seemed like the answer to all of Jaime’s questions.

 Remember how his father was Hand of the King? The plan for Jaime to join the Kingsguard was effective, in that he did receive that white cloak and the vows of celibacy and non-inheritance that came with it. King Aerys II attended the tourney at Harrenhal, where he fixed the white cloak to his Hand’s 15-year-old son’s shoulders, and then promptly sent the boy back to King’s Landing before he could compete in the tourney. Lord Tywin took Jaime’s investiture as the final straw in his increasingly hostile relationship with the king, because it really was a great insult to put a white cloak on a high lord’s heir, and he promptly resigned as Hand.

 The result was that Jaime was now stuck with the Mad King, and his father took Cersei back home to Casterly Rock.

 What just happened? A mostly-healthy, mostly-normal 15-year-old boy who had everything going for him, gave it all up because he wanted to keep on fucking his twin sister.

 We may ask, who else was involved in the decision to put this very young, very valuable boy under an oath that effectively took away the rest of his life? Certainly not Lord Tywin, who was still convinced, eighteen years later, that Jaime should be his heir. There was Cersei, who may have had other incentives to get her brother put in the Kingsguard; even if her father’s plans of marrying her to the next king didn’t work out, Jaime was out of the line of succession to Casterly Rock, which theoretically might have made her Tywin’s new heir, opposed as he was to letting Tyrion inherit the castle. That said, Cersei was just another 15-year-old, there were plenty of people in King’s Landing who may have wanted to find a way to remove Tywin as King’s Hand, and so she didn’t necessarily get the idea all by herself. There’s a good argument to be made that Varys served as the intermediary between her and King Aerys, and was in fact the one who really convinced Aerys to make Jaime his new Kingsguard knight. The plan appealed to Aerys as a way to piss off Tywin, who annoyed him on account of being too good at his job. It may have appealed to Varys as a way to destabilize the realm for his own nefarious purposes, as Tywin was indeed too good at his job, and putting a white cloak on his son was a sure way to rob King’s Landing of the influence of the man who made the metaphorical trains run on time. Even if Cersei made all those arrangements by her juvenile self, we are still left with King Aerys somehow thinking it was a good idea to rob Tywin of his heir. I realize they called him the Mad King for much more serious reasons than this one, but still: was there no one in that court willing to tell the king maybe he shouldn’t put a fifteen-year-old boy in the Kingsguard? Surely there were other knights and lordlings, more mature and of lower status, who also expressed interest in that opening? As an adult in that situation, King Aerys would not have been out of line to say, “No, Jaime, you do NOT get a white cloak. Go home and play with your ugly little brother.”

 No, of course that’s a stupid question: aside from Tywin, there was no one in that court willing to tell the king he was wrong. I realize that Westerosi culture does not make the same distinction between adolescence and adulthood that we do here in the 21st century, and that the Night’s Watch has taken in younger boys and put them to good use, but still, Jaime was the youngest knight ever to join the Kingsguard, and that record is no accident. He made a lifelong decision based on faulty planning and faultier premises, and he effectively threw his life away because his mother was dead, his father was clueless, the king was a madman, and Jaime just wanted to fuck his sister for a while longer. He was the one who suffered the most from that decision.

https://cloaksoiledhim.wordpress.com/home/part-2-in-which-he-gets-a-new-nickname/

Having believed he was choosing between “a rock” and his affair with his twin, young Jaime was instead completely cut off from his family and stuck in a dead-end job guarding a dangerously volatile king without his father’s stabilizing influence.

 After he sacrificed his claim to Casterly Rock, triggered his father’s resignation as Hand, and lost what little access to Cersei he’d previously had, it may be difficult to imagine how his plans could have backfired in more serious ways, but the next two years of his life showed Jaime what serving in the Kingsguard really meant. He was expected to do whatever was required to keep the monarch and his close family members and advisors alive, including to sacrifice his own life, and that much was straightforward. Another way to describe a KG knight’s duty is to make sure no one kills the king while he’s doing whatever it is he’s doing. The moral value of that job depends on the actions of the king, and we’re talking about a king who had already removed the tongue of a knight who announced that Tywin Lannister was too good at his job.

 Under these conditions, Jaime’s duties included guarding Queen Rhaella, who was the king’s abuse victim as much as his consort. He had to stand at the door and pretend not to hear as the king battered and violated his sister/wife, because his duty to guard the queen did not include guarding the queen from the king. He was told this was his duty as a knight of the Kingsguard, and he should not complain about doing his job.

 He was also responsible for the safety of Prince Rhaegar, who appeared to have had a decent rapport with Jaime, but Prince Rhaegar’s actions also set in motion the sequence of events that led to Robert’s Rebellion, and once the rebellion was in motion, guarding the king became increasingly difficult to justify. At the very same tourney at which Jaime was entered into the Kingsguard but not allowed to compete, Prince Rhaegar caused a scandal by naming Lyanna Stark his Queen of Love and Beauty, over his wife Princess Elia Martell.

Not much later, Prince Rhaegar abducted Lyanna and King Aerys refused to move against his son. The abduction led to King Aerys executing Lyanna’s father, Lord Rickard, her oldest brother, Brandon Stark, and all of their companions except for young Ethan Glover, without a real trial. In place of a trial, Lord Rickard was strung up over a fire and slowly roasted alive, while his son Brandon was strangled to death while trying to rescue his father. This was King Aerys’s response to the Starks demanding the return of Lyanna, and it took place in front of a crowd of silent onlookers, including his youngest Kingsguard knight Jaime Lannister. In this event, Jaime’s job was to keep anyone from killing the king while he carried out his atrocities, and afterwards, his sworn brother Ser Gerold Hightower counseled Jaime that his duty was to guard the king, not to judge him.

 Years later, Jaime still regards Ser Gerold as a much better man than he himself. This was the lesson he received from such better men in those two years of serving Aerys: just do your job and don’t complain. They were effectively asking him to consider himself privileged to enable the king’s atrocities.

 The Starks’ deaths by pyromancy were neither the last nor the worst acts of violence King Aerys enacted with Jaime protecting him. As the rebellion wore on and the royalists were increasingly on the losing side, Aerys became more paranoid and more destructive, and he started working on a little pet project called the Wildfire Plot. After announcing to the court that the champion of House Targaryen was fire, he tasked his pyromancers with the job of saturating King’s Landing with fire in liquid form. They worked at brewing as much wildfire as possible, and Aerys spent many meetings telling them where under the city to set up the containers, and he did all this with Jaime standing his silent watch.

 During the rebellion, Aerys apparently decided Jaime had to be watched and wanted to keep him close as much as possible, and he did so for the same dreadfully ill-advised reason as he put the white cloak on Jaime in the first place: because he was Tywin Lannister’s son. While Lord Tywin kept his own House and the Westerlands out of the war, Aerys thought it would be a good idea to make Jaime his pet guard and keep him close to ensure Tywin’s neutrality. There was Jaime, employed as a bodyguard while simultaneously held hostage against his father, while Aerys prepared for the nuclear option against the rebels. Just as there had been no one to advise King Aerys against putting his Hand’s 15-year-old son in the Kingsguard, there was no one with the backbone to tell him that combining the roles of bodyguard and hostage was the worst idea ever in the history of kings having bad ideas.

The practical upshot was that Jaime spent day after day pretending not to overhear the king making plans to burn the capital city to ash. “The traitors want my city, but I’ll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over cooked bones and charred meat,” he said to his pyromancers, while Jaime made sure no one interrupted their plans for mass destruction. Remember, his duty was to guard the king, not to judge him.

 The noble Prince Rhaegar’s grand plans did not work out the way he thought they would, and he died on the Trident. By that point, the rebels’ victory was a fait accompli, and Jaime knew it. He knew that if the Lannister forces showed up at the city gates, it wouldn’t be to defend the royal family from the rebels. When the Lannisters arrived ahead of Ned Stark’s forces, Grand Maester Pycelle convinced King Aerys that the Lannisters were there to do precisely the opposite of what they were about to do, and the gates were opened to the army that promptly sacked the city. For his part, Jaime’s first decision was not to kill the king; he wanted to meet his father’s army and arrange a peaceful surrender. Aerys felt differently. “Bring me your father’s head, if you are no traitor,” was his response.

 Meanwhile, the king was in the immediate company of his current Hand, Rossart the pyromancer, which meant he was about to burn them all.

With no chance at a peaceful surrender, Jaime first killed Rossart as he tried to sneak out the back door, and then he dragged Aerys down off the throne and slit his throat. In the following days, Jaime would track down and kill the other pyromancers who’d been involved in the plot.

Wearing his gold armor under his white cloak, and carrying his gold sword with the king’s blood running down the blade, Jaime hopped up on the Iron Throne and waited to see who would arrive. The Lannister knights and bannermen arrived at the Red Keep, having already set the lion banner flying above the city ramparts. A group of Lannister troops took over the throne room ahead of Ned Stark’s company. There was the image Ned Stark found in the throne room: the Mad King dead on the floor, a bunch of Westermen hanging around, and 17-year-old Jaime Lannister’s gold-armored backside perched up on the throne, with his lion’s-head helm on his pretty blond head. Not that anyone tried to stop Lord Eddard from establishing a presence in the room; the Lannisters drew back and let the Starks ride in. Moreover, when Jaime saw Ned ride into the room, he didn’t occupy the throne for any longer. When he saw the way Ned was looking at him, he hopped right back up and said: “Have no fear, Stark, I was only keeping it warm for our friend Robert. It’s not a very comfortable seat, I’m afraid.” Based on the optics of the Lannisters’ sack of the city, and Jaime’s flippant response, Ned assumed Jaime was in a perfectly cheery mood after having slashed the king’s throat, and he concluded that Jaime’s killing the king was part of the package of the Lannisters and their bannermen taking the city by treachery.

 I’m aware that Westeros is a culture that’s not terribly interested in psychology and the range of responses to trauma, so it’s no surprise that Ned Stark never considered perhaps Jaime was a great example of a high-ranking nobleman who’d been taught from the cradle to project an image of invincibility, that the Lannister ethos was especially hostile to any expression of vulnerability, that Jaime couldn’t afford to appear less than composed in front of the Lannister knights, and there may have been a more complicated story than Jaime having turned on his king to help his father. A more complicated story never occurred to him, and once his decision was made, all the other nobles, knights and advisors in the rebellion followed Ned’s lead. Everyone was so sure they knew everything they needed to know about Jaime’s killing the Mad King, and they called him Kingslayer, and they treated him like an amoral, untrustworthy murderer for killing the king whose death was as necessary as it was inevitable. In the process of setting up Robert’s new regime and deciding who would live or die and stay or leave, no one showed the slightest curiosity in Jaime’s side of the story.

 At Robert’s coronation, Jaime was required to kneel at the royal feet along with Grand Maester Pycelle, who had convinced Aerys to open the city gates to the Lannisters, and Lord Varys, who had constantly filled the king’s already-paranoid had with more rumors of traitors, and King Robert made a show of forgiving him for having served the Mad King. It was decided that Jaime would be kept in the Kingsguard following his act of regicide, but King Robert never took his new queen’s twin aside to ask him about his decision to kill Aerys. Lord Commander Barristan Selmy, who’d spent years watching Aerys become increasingly dangerous to the realm, never tried sitting down with his youngest Sworn Brother and asking for an explanation of his decision. Everyone was so sure they had Jaime all figured out, nobody ever considered they might get something interesting for the history books by asking him for his version of events. The new King’s Hand Jon Arryn never asked him. King Robert’s famously stern, just brother Stannis never asked him. No one on the Small Council ever tried asking him to explain in his own words why the king had to die on his blade. No one in his family ever asked him; not Cersei, not Uncle Kevan, not Aunt Genna, and certainly not Lord Tywin, who made not the slightest effort to stay in his son’s life once he removed himself from the line of succession.

 I repeat: nobody ever asked Jaime to tell them why he killed the king. Everyone treated him like the Worst Person Ever for killing the king before the rebels could, and no one was even slightly interested in hearing from him about why he did it. Ned Stark and Barristan Selmy both advised Robert to send Jaime to join the Night’s Watch, but Jon Arryn convinced Robert to pardon Jaime. His sentence was commuted, but his conviction was never overturned, and he never had a chance to testify on his own behalf.

 In that environment, Jaime had a solid incentive to show Robert he’d killed Aerys with good reason, as he surely didn’t want to spend the rest of his life freezing his balls off at the Wall. That he didn’t tell anyone about the Wildfire Plot suggests he didn’t have a chance to tell anyone, that he had every reason to believe the court would refuse to believe him if he volunteered the information, and therefore he had no better options but to leave the story untold and the tons of wildfire out of sight and out of mind.

 The fallout of Jaime’s service to the Mad King would have made a vicious cynic of even the most optimistic kid, and I reiterate that Jaime was, at that time, still just a kid. He spent two years being forced to enable atrocities, right up to the moment where he couldn’t protect the king even from himself, and there is no telling how many lives he saved by breaking his vows when he did. The common estimate of “half a million” is insufficient; by killing the Mad King, Jaime saved King’s Landing from certain obliteration, and by saving King’s Landing, he kept the Seven Kingdoms intact. Had the Mad King succeeded in setting off the wildfire, there’s no telling how many more wars would have broken out as the surviving lords of Westeros fought over which region should be the site of the new capital, or whether the Seven Kingdoms should go back to autonomous and mutually antagonistic provinces, and who should be in charge of what. There’s no telling how many more years the Seven Kingdoms would have been in turmoil, and how many more people would have died, if King’s Landing had not survived the rebellion. Jaime not only saved the lives of everyone in the city who weren’t killed by his father’s forces during the Sack; he prevented incalculable death and suffering outside the capital by making sure the rebels still had a city to take over.

 The nobility of Westeros looked at this traumatized, isolated teenager who made a decision and saved countless lives, and they called him: Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. Man without honor.

 

 

Sometimes, people simply choose to be wrong. Jaime is one of the biggest lightning rods for the Wrong By Choice.  which is what I have to say to you Lord Varys

[Corvo the Crow]

14 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Never mind. 

Ok

[goldenlion]

@Lord Varys cersei didnt have to have sex with them that is just something she didnt have to do cersei relys on sex to manipulate people too much while margery at most just teases.  this attempt to act like she needed to do it is just bs. not ot mention the whole claim that jaime is a narcissist or thinks he is better than ned or above judgement when ned was just in open rebellion  against aerys to jaime he was pretty hypocritical. it reminds me of the attempts to demonize jaime and to put it bluntly jaime is just one of the characters that 

 and on the claim that jaime is a narcissist Sometimes, people simply choose to be wrong. Jaime is one of the biggest lightning rods for the Wrong By Choice.   

like claiming he thinks throwing bran off was right when he outright states that he feels ashamed of it (or some people seem to belive cersei when she claimed that she never asked jaime to push bran or didnt want that to happen when yeah she wanted bran dead when jaime pulled bran up she went what are you doing ( as in what are you doing trying to save bran he saw us)

[SeanF]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 3:14 AM, goldenlion said:

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140423?page=3

 GRRM has also clarified, in as many words, that Jaime’s motivation in tossing Bran from that tower was deadly serious:

At the same time, what Jaime did is interesting. I don’t have any kids myself, but I’ve talked with other people who have. Remember, Jaime isn’t just trying to kill Bran because he’s an annoying little kid. Bran has seen something that is basically a death sentence for Jaime, for Cersei, and their children – their three actual children. So I’ve asked people who do have children, “Well, what would you do in Jaime’s situation?” They say, “Well, I’m not a bad guy – I wouldn’t kill.” Are you sure? Never? If Bran tells King Robert he’s going to kill you and your sister-lover, and your three children. . . .
Then many of them hesitate. Probably more people than not would say, “Yeah, I would kill someone else’s child to save my own child, even if that other child was innocent.” These are the difficult decisions people make, and they’re worth examining.

jaime always hated pushing bran off the tower when he did it ( though cersei likes to act like she wasnt there or that jaime didnt do it for her when yes he did at first jaime pulled up bran saving him from falling but cersei said what are you doing showing that she doesnt want bran alive and looked at him like she looked at pycelle nonverball sending the message and jaime said the things I do fdor love with LOATHING

 

cersei gaslighted jaime

@867-5309

 

That's a bit like saying a burglar has no choice but to kill a homeowner who interrupts him, in order to avoid being punished.

[goldenlion]

@Lord Varys I disagree with the notion that he didnt do that for his kids it was for cersei, the kids, his father and brother that he pushed bran off the tower to protect them and it was only  by the joffreys death that he began to think of how he felt on them and he was surprised that he didnt feel about joffreys death as he thought he should have like loras reaction even then he knew joffrey wasa horrible person. and he cared about tommen and myrcella

To save himself, Cersei and the kids (just because he didn't love them as a father doesn't mean he'd see them dead over Bran), as any person would probably do, so I've never understood those who use it to make him a moustache twirling villain. His actions have always been understandable, made even more so through Ned and Cat's reluctant acknowledgment. But there's a big difference between understanding why he did it and thinking it was a justified, no other choice to make kind of decision.

[Varysblackfyre321]

On July 24, 2018 at 5:33 PM, Lord Varys said:

He could have talked about it. But he didn't talk about it because it is presumptuous for the wolf to judge the lion. The lion is better than that. Nobody can judge him, so he has no reason to explain himself.

Oh, and I don't believe Jaime killed Aerys for the right reason. He did it because he could and because he wanted to. There was no reason to kill Aerys to save the city. Rossart was dead, and Tywin's men were at the door. Aerys didn't have a remote control hidden in his soiled robes, or anything.

And that shows what Jaime Lannister thinks of one of the most sacred vows in his own culture - he doesn't give shit about them.

True. Honestly, I feel Jaimie doesn't exactly tell his tale is in part because he knows someone will bring up how he(a near 6ft, muscled youth whose a prodigy at fighting), should be able to incapacitate Aerys II(a sickly, deluded, and frail man who was never physically imposing even when he was healthy), without killing the guy. If someone did point out holes in Jaimie's story then Jaimie can't pretend to be a pure victim of circumstance. Which he loves. Hell, he tried to push the entire blame on Bran's fall on Cersi and whined when she pointed out he was the one pressured her into having sex at winterfel in the first place, after she repeatedly told him it was too risky.  The guy can't really take responsibility for his actions-someone else is always to blame for his misdeeds; it was his father, it was Aerys , it was Bran, it was Cersi everyone is to blame for the crimes of Jaimie lanister except Jaimie Lanister.