Discussing Jaime and Brienne

[House Cambodia]

23 minutes ago, Ranger Kragin said:

Is there anyone here believing that Jaime is going to survive the last war?

Somehow everything has become so predictable, so easy.

Cersei and Jaime dying, Cleganebowl, Dany dying, Jon going back to the [breached] wall, Sansa Queen in the North, Arya becoming No One.. what would be the greatest twist at this point? 

As much as I have little faith in D&D as screenwriters, I do think that in a narrative sense, Jamie has to die - he's screwed up his redemption arc, so he has to pay with his life. The other endings you spell out seem predictable to you and me, but as you know, there are many fans deep in cognitive dissonance that can't handle Dany's death. If none of the ones you mention are going to have a twist, it has to be the one you've omitted - Bran. No, I don't for a moment think he's going to sit on the Iron Throne - he's not even going to leave his damn tree, but he's where I'm pinning my ep 6 last minute WTF moment.

[Ranger Kragin]

6 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

As much as I have little faith in D&D as screenwriters, I do think that in a narrative sense, Jamie has to die - he's screwed up his redemption arc, so he has to pay with his life.

Here is where I disagree. He's following the classical redemption path BY THE BOOK. He only needs the final sacrifice to show he's not selfish anymore and we're having this (I may argue that going all alone to Winterfell to fight the WW counts but let's leave it for now)

Whether he survives, is completely in the hands of GRRM and D&D. If they want to make his end fantasy/fairytale-wise or a tragedy. Theon's death made sense to me because his redemption path wasn't based on the Beauty and the Beast trope. But Jaimie and Brienne is. The Beast has his HEA when he finds true love. Jaime, well I don't know. He is loved, you may say he broke the spell, but the witch who cursed him is still alive, so he must kill her. 

Everyone seem to believe he's going to die. So it's predictable.

And giving Brienne his child as consolation prize would be sooooo lame. I hope the two find something better for her.

[House Cambodia]

7 minutes ago, Ranger Kragin said:

And giving Brienne his child as consolation prize would be sooooo lame. I hope the two find something better for her.

Jeeeez, no cheesy babies - not Brienne, not Arya, not Dany. Gilly gets a pass but that's enough.

 

I don't see any reason for Brienne not to remain at Sansa's side, protecting her as she rules the North.

[Ranger Kragin]

Agreed.

If this is a bitterweet ending: Most of the heroes in Lords of the Rings survived. We were all waiting for a carnage in the Long Night. It didn't come. 

[Pauld123]

GOT was not about swords and battles. It was a Machiavellian political thriller. Scheming and conniving was the method of achieving the end result and sometimes that required bloodshed. Recently it has become open bloodshed for the end result, there is no subtlety. 

So a major shock would be Jon, Dany and Cersei all dying and Varys filling the vacuum by declaring a republic with Gendry's backing (Gendry doesn't want to be a king). Then Varys becomes the first president of Westeros.

Now that would be shocking but not completely unrealistic because it is close to what happened in the real world in many monarchies.

It also fulfills Dany's desire for a better world (although ironically because there no longer is a monarch).

It would prove Littlefingers prediction that chaos is a ladder that anyone can climb and reach the top.

It would neatly end the tale of Westeros as that tale was Game of Throne - and the end would be the abolishment of the Throne.

 

[House Cambodia]

13 minutes ago, Pauld123 said:

So a major shock would be Jon, Dany and Cersei all dying and Varys filling the vacuum by declaring a republic with Gendry's backing (Gendry doesn't want to be a king). Then Varys becomes the first president of Westeros.

Now that would be shocking but not completely unrealistic because it is close to what happened in the real world in many monarchies.

WHAT????? In the real world in the Middle Ages? War of the Roses? Absolutely not. No one in Westeros has the tiniest notion of 20th century real-world politics and it isn't going to happen.

[Pauld123]

There is no point in referencing England, England is still a monarchy. So that isn't a relevant comparison of how to change from Monarchy to republic.

The last king of Italy left peacefully and retired. The Queen has been deposed in many many colonies without violence or war. Greece removed their king via referendum. Ludwig of Bavaria was deposed without violence.

The point is that if the only person left to rule doesn't want to rule and that's the end of the bloodline, then a republic is an obvious possibility. Also would be a quite a twist/shock. But would also end the story, because no more throne means no more game of thrones. (it would become house of cards instead!!)

48 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

WHAT????? In the real world in the Middle Ages? War of the Roses? Absolutely not. No one in Westeros has the tiniest notion of 20th century real-world politics and it isn't going to happen.

 

[House Cambodia]

2 minutes ago, Pauld123 said:

There is no point in referencing England, England is still a monarchy.

What a nonsense remark. What has the 21st century political situation got to do with anything? The reason I reference England is because GRRM has stressed his dominant influence was the Wars of the Roses, together with earlier Medieval English and a little Scottish history. I don't see any equivalents of the Levellers or Diggers amongst those still standing in Westeros.

[Ranger Kragin]

1 hour ago, Pauld123 said:

GOT was not about swords and battles. It was a Machiavellian political thriller. Scheming and conniving was the method of achieving the end result and sometimes that required bloodshed. Recently it has become open bloodshed for the end result, there is no subtlety. 

I disagree. It'd say it was the other way around: It is above all a fantasy with a high use of magical and mythical elements based in fantasy tropes and subverted tropes with a fair attempt at a Machiavellian plot device.

GRRM himself said he was inspired by medieval European history and Tolkien.

You cannot even for a second forget the high use of magic in this tale and pretend it is "based on real life experience" because it is simply not true. In real life you do not have dragons, magical swords, dead walkers, dead that come back to life, frankenstein creatures and zombies, which are not cosmetic, they're fundamental in GOT. You must use metaphors, adaptations and analogies to translate all that in a human experience, just as in Lord of the Rings.

And the show, as bad as it is, is not selling a "true to life experience" but a fantasy, that's why so many discussions about strategy, physics and mathematical equations do not make much sense to me. It is like quoting relativistic physics in Star Wars movies.

A major shock would be to kill off all the protagonists and let the secondary characters take over. Would that be a surprise anymore in GOT? This is what it has been doing since the beginning.

[beauty6]

Regarding possible pregnancies, I hate how the writers deal with sex in this show universe. It is supposed to resemble Middle ages. How come people have so much casual sex without getting married ? In the book canon, the good manners is to "marry the next day" if the sex happens out of the wedlock. On the show, people behave like in the 21. century, as if contraception was widely available and as if bastards had no stigma. Would Brienne really sleep with Jaime without getting married ? She drank a little, but she clearly knew what she was doing. She froze at some moments, but decided to continue. How does possible pregnancy go with her lifestyle and her determination to be Sansa's bodyguard "till the day she dies" ? (She said this to Blackfish back then.) Should not Jaime have the decency to marry Brienne before going on his suicidal mission to Kings Landing ? If she becomes pregnant, the child will be a bastard, Someone Snow, with a problematic social status.

[House Cambodia]

23 minutes ago, beauty6 said:

Regarding possible pregnancies, I hate how the writers deal with sex in this show universe. It is supposed to resemble Middle ages. How come people have so much casual sex without getting married ? In the book canon, the good manners is to "marry the next day" if the sex happens out of the wedlock. On the show, people behave like in the 21. century, as if contraception was widely available and as if bastards had no stigma. Would Brienne really sleep with Jaime without getting married ? She drank a little, but she clearly knew what she was doing. She froze at some moments, but decided to continue. How does possible pregnancy go with her lifestyle and her determination to be Sansa's bodyguard "till the day she dies" ? (She said this to Blackfish back then.) Should not Jaime have the decency to marry Brienne before going on his suicidal mission to Kings Landing ? If she becomes pregnant, the child will be a bastard, Someone Snow, with a problematic social status.

You're absolutely right when it's about the upper classes and those with codes of chivalry. It doesn't apply to women considered chattel - the smallfolks, slaves and brothel-workers (prostitution accounted for possibly 10% of female employment).

[Haus Berlin]

16 hours ago, beauty6 said:

Regarding possible pregnancies, I hate how the writers deal with sex in this show universe. It is supposed to resemble Middle ages. How come people have so much casual sex without getting married ? In the book canon, the good manners is to "marry the next day" if the sex happens out of the wedlock. On the show, people behave like in the 21. century, as if contraception was widely available and as if bastards had no stigma. Would Brienne really sleep with Jaime without getting married ? She drank a little, but she clearly knew what she was doing. She froze at some moments, but decided to continue. How does possible pregnancy go with her lifestyle and her determination to be Sansa's bodyguard "till the day she dies" ? (She said this to Blackfish back then.) Should not Jaime have the decency to marry Brienne before going on his suicidal mission to Kings Landing ? If she becomes pregnant, the child will be a bastard, Someone Snow, with a problematic social status.

It's good to see someone still asking that questions since this is all we really got in that episode:

 

1. We got one kiss and Jaime awake, while Brienne slept on the other side of her bed.

2. We got Jaime fully dressed in Brienne's bedroom, she sleeping in the middle of her bed and only waking when he gets up.

We are surely expected to connect the dots. Some characters already did. Tyrion, who thought Jaime and Cersei would start something new when it was pretty much over. Bronn, who thought they were fucking when Jaime and Brienne did not even kiss.

Compare the supposed sex scene with the montage of Jaime's and Cersei's last. There was more than a kiss to indicate they would have sex. Their awaking next morning was a close position in bed.

Of course JB-shippers won't tap in that trap and believe JC is more loving and hence Jaime departing. But JB-shippers might wish to get too much all at once and create their own drama that way. What if they are confronted with their (easily dismissed) concept of courtly love?

They frame Jon's drunken rejection of sex with a JB kiss and Jaime awake at night. What makes us so sure he did not leave her room and went for his own like Daenerys did? Brienne lies on the other side of the bed and won't wake. Fighting, drinking, kissing is pretty much - all at once. Jaime, similiar to his scene with Cersei, is deep in thought about the consequences to be seen together in bed - even if it's literally only sleeping together. So I think he moved out.

Brienne would wake up, think about last night's kiss as something promissing yet debatable given the circumstances. But, well, this is what she got and she can go back to her work, called battle.

Then comes the night where Jaime leaves. Now he gets that it is Sansa's scheme to sit Cersei's war out, as Cersei sat hers out. Now he is the only Lannister brother left and Brienne the only general left and Bronn sticks around in Winterfell to give Cersei what she wanted in (the now more likely) case she wins.

Note that Jaime sits fully dressed in Brienne's bedroom, but can not even undress himself without help. His slightest move woke Brienne. More likely he just went to her room to say goodbye but could not find the heart or the words to do or say something. As Sansa won't go into battle Brienne is saver here than at his side. But it helps Cersei to win all the same. Likely she dies a maiden.

When Brienne finds him she is distroyed by the possibilty that Jaime prefers the safety his sister can offer him over the safety she offered him here. Because that's still her definition of love, to keep each other save. One kiss did not change that for her, but Jaime had more than that with his sister. After their first battle together she is afraid that the Last War brings them on different sides again.

One solution: Lure Sansa out of Winterfell's false safety with something that would need no army (the Prince of Dorne), let Brienne join the battle... but this time come with an army (forces of Highgarden and Riverrun).

[Ranger Kragin]

@Haus Berlin I disagree that the show is showing courtly love. They DID do it. The proof is that not only Tyrion insinuates Jaime had sex with Brienne, but Jaime himself confirms it (he finds inappropriate to say his brother how Brienne looks “down there”).

If we didn’t have a full blown love scene Jon+Dany style is because, I suppose, they had to keep the episode within the 78 minutes. That why we didn’t even have a proper goodbye with Ghost (that was the real shame).

I doubt many things in this show, but not this. 

And I do not even feel like is out of character for Brienne. She is a lady but she never considered herself one. She is a “sir” now, and her knighting ceremony, from Jaime, for her is the equivalent of a wedding. She’s not a conventional woman.

Take a look at both their faces when he says “Arise, Brienne of Tarth, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms”. He might as well say: “With this sword I thee wed”.

[JonStarkIII]

On 5/6/2019 at 11:53 AM, Bran the Shipper said:

While I support the Jaime and Brienne romance, I don't like how it was handled.  They hooked them up only to tear them apart.  It came across that Jaime got really drunk and horny.  But when morning came he realized that he didn't want to do that again, and so he had to come up with an excuse to run off because he didn't want to be with Brienne anymore. 

It's worse, but in the same vein, than what they did with the Arya and Gendry pairing.  Which was Arya wanted a booty call and then had to explain to Gendry that she didn't actually want to be with him.

I think Jaime and Breinne were not just one night....but maybe a few days or a week...Remember its announced he is staying in Winterfell...and soon after he learns the contents of the message concerning Danys defeats etc.....thats when he decides to leave....Im not sure if he is going to help rescue Cercei or to prevent her from doing further harm.  He knows she blew up the Sept and everyone in it....so maybe hes trying to prevent another mad king episode with wildfire blowing up the city...of course Dany could do that on accident with dragon fire.  But I think Jaime was being tough on Brienne as not to hurt her.  He treated her like a dick so she wouldn't pine after him forever.

[MinscS2]

Yeah, Jamie probably stayed at WF for a week or two, considering that he didn't leave until after Daenerys fleet had been ambushed at Dragonstone, and the journey there (first to White Harbor and then sailing all the way there) isn't exactly done in a day. 

Well, in D&D's universe it very well might...

[beauty6]

@Haus Berlin ... nah... they did it...