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The Book of The Kingsguard - Help Me Decide


#FreeGhost

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In the books at least Jaime does appear to be breaking contact from Cersei and not responding to her.  He sent Brienne to fulfill the promise he made to Caitlyn Stark to trade him for Sansa and Arya (as best he could).   He went North to fulfill that promise even if he want alone and at the risk of being executed.  Maybe he is just the same person but we know more about him as the story is told.  

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13 minutes ago, The Baelish Mockingbird said:

I don't think it is a 180 on his redemption arc. He had been fully redeemed at that point. The problem is that you're considering him going back to Cersei to be an irredeemable act if you think it is a complete 180 for his character. He's not going back to Cersei to rule over the Kingdoms with her, he's going back to try and save her, both physically and mentally. He helped save the Seven Kingdoms and now he wants to save the woman he loved. He wants to save her from Dany and he wants to save her from herself.He's not undoing anything which he previously went through, he is a better man now. He's not given up on Cersei though. Staying in Winterfell would have been backwards character development. He would have essentially decided that he doesn't care about Cersei or his unborn child at that point.

I see where you're coming from. But you have taken it upon yourself to work this out. There is a basic contradiction at play in that in the Books, Jaime has the agency between himself/Cersie, while in the Show, Cersie has the agency (a general sore spot in that D&D give her way too much agency). So what is one of, if not the richest character arcs in the books is stunted, to say the least. In the books, he rejects her plea prior to the walk of shame and has thusfar never looked back.

When they had him rape Cersie in the sept, bookreaders naturally assume that D&D 'screwed up' Jaime, so any attempt of theirs to inject his complexity vis a vis his inability to break free from her is just seen as errors in storytelling. Add to that D&D's wont to contradict themselves from one episode to the next:

Jaime (to Bran): "I'm not the same person I was..."

Bran (corrected): "Wellll…. you kinda are though!"

 

Jaime: "I never really cared about the smallfolk, innocent or not."

Tyrion (corrected): "with the exception of the one reason behind your nickname."

 

How do you get around such sloppiness? For my part, a character that I hated most to a character I loved became the one whose death left me shockingly indifferent. That's not a flawed character or his choices, that's flawed storytelling.

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8 minutes ago, #FreeGhost said:

How do you get around such sloppiness? For my part, a character that I hated most to a character I loved became the one whose death left me shockingly indifferent. That's not a flawed character or his choices, that's flawed storytelling.

Yet that might just be you coping with the character being taken in a different direction than you expected. Out of all the big deaths in the season (most of which didn't effect me as much as they should have done) Cersei and Jaime's deaths were the ones which affected me.

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The great dimension of what is wrong with this scene is that it redeems the Kingslayer via trying to save that mass murderer, insane queen, Cerseir, while Daenerys goes down as the most villified evil Queen in history.  This is ... just wrong.  It feels more wrong to me the more time goes on.

I wasn't particularly enamored of Daenerys  (with none of them, for that matter --  and I never 'identified' with any of them -- I don't read fiction that way, or for that). It was politics etc. that interested me.  But as the days have worn on since the finale, and the howling hate of the fans continued to increase in volume, against both Daenerys and Sansa, oddly, the more I think about their ends, the more I like both of them.

And I do feel Daenerys was badly done by -- I mean, really? TWO Mad Queens in a single work?  Its again one of those things that show neither the source material nor the showrunners ever thought through anything about their characters and what they were about.  A deserted lover giving Jamie redemption through his rush to the first mad queen is just too damned much.  Too damned unfair.  

And no, the books do NOT come into this for me.  I don't give a damn about the books that are finished or the ones that will never be finished.  HBO's show is It.

:cheers:

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15 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The great dimension of what is wrong with this scene is that it redeems the Kingslayer via trying to save that mass murderer, insane queen, Cerseir, while Daenerys goes down as the most villified evil Queen in history.  This is ... just wrong.  It feels more wrong to me the more time goes on.

 

I'm not sure it redeems Jaime. The book just says he died protecting cersei. And if people read about cersei, I doubt they would feel positively towards Jaime. Brienne just stated facts, trying to say nothing bad about Jaime, which I understand.

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Perhaps the major families care more about their families than they care about the realm as a whole.  If we view the Stark actions as protecting the Starks as long as we count Jon as a Stark, Danaerys actions trying to redeem the Targaryn's to power, the Lannisters trying to get and hold power, etc.  Noe one cares about the realm.  If they are not egocentric entirely they care more about their family than anything else.   In the end Cersei was family.  

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1 hour ago, Bear42 said:

Am I the only one who thinks Jaime's character arc isn't a circle, its just a dot.  He never changed or grew.  There was no redemption arc.  The most honorable thing he ever did was before season 1, so the Jaime we saw in the first episode throwing Bran out a window was the same guy who sacrificed his honor for the people of King's Landing.  He would always do whatever it took to be with Cersei but all the while retaining a sense of duty that had been long ingrained into his mind .  We may have learned about his greatest sacrifice later on in the show but the fact is the deed was done long before he confessed it to Brienne so that hardly counts as redemption, just revelation.  I don't believe there was a version of Jaime in any season where he wouldn't throw Bran out of that window for Cersei.  Remember Jaime in the Riverlands?

 

I don't get why I keep seeing people say how fitting it was to see Jaime come full circle when he really just spent 8 seasons standing still.  He's not a better man in the end, he's not a changed man, I guess his hair got darker but that's about it.

While I agree the show couldve showed his redemption arc better, here is how I saw it.

Season 3: starts caring about someone other than himself and cersei-Brienne. Saves her from being raped, goes back to get her when he didn't have to.

Season 4: sends brienne to find and protect the stark girls despite of cersei wanting them dead.

Season 5: tries to develop a relationship with his daughter myrcella. (Although that dorne plot was horrid)

Season 6: breaks the siege of riverrun without bloodshed. I know what he said in season 8, but I don't think he wouldve hurt edmure's child. And we can disagree on that. 

Season 7: leaves cersei, knowing she is pregnant, to do what is right.

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2 hours ago, Bear42 said:

Am I the only one who thinks Jaime's character arc isn't a circle, its just a dot. 

<snip>

I don't get why I keep seeing people say how fitting it was to see Jaime come full circle when he really just spent 8 seasons standing still.  He's not a better man in the end, he's not a changed man, I guess his hair got darker but that's about it.

Absolutely. It's like a fantasy soap opera. He's been on some wild rides, but in the end it's back to status quo.
It's not even a surprise as long as we're just aware which genre we're in now...

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Hey guys! So I just registered to comment on this. 2 parts to this for me:

1) The White Book

2) Jaime's character

 

So, let's start with Brienne's closing scene. I liked it a lot...but I do feel like it would have been nice to have a shot of her name up there on the next page. Otherwise it does kinda feel like her point is to close Jaime's character arc, not live her own.

 

On Jaime, I feel like his ending was the absolute best one of all the characters. It was human and it was the actions of someone in an abusive relationship: someone who's never known better. Well, he does get to know better, for one night, but then he cannot live with it and goes back to his abuser...

It's absolutely perfect, for me, and one of the few things that I feel was actually well done. He cannot explain it to Brienne because he cannot explain it to himself. 

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1 hour ago, Stomalomalus said:

Hey guys! So I just registered to comment on this. 2 parts to this for me:

1) The White Book

2) Jaime's character

 

So, let's start with Brienne's closing scene. I liked it a lot...but I do feel like it would have been nice to have a shot of her name up there on the next page. Otherwise it does kinda feel like her point is to close Jaime's character arc, not live her own.

 

On Jaime, I feel like his ending was the absolute best one of all the characters. It was human and it was the actions of someone in an abusive relationship: someone who's never known better. Well, he does get to know better, for one night, but then he cannot live with it and goes back to his abuser...

It's absolutely perfect, for me, and one of the few things that I feel was actually well done. He cannot explain it to Brienne because he cannot explain it to himself. 

First of all, welcome!

1) Before anything else, I'm not sure why brienne wrote about Jaime in the book, he was dismissed from the KG.

Let's say she did it for sentimental reasons, ignoring the fact that he wasn't in the KG when he died. I can understand why, she really liked him. And the fact that she was wrting in that book and was sitting at the small council indicated she was LC. Anything more would've been hamfisted.

2) Jaime was with Brienne till everyone reached Dragonstone and a raven was sent to WF about the attack. That would be at least 3 weeks. So it's not one night. Plus, Jaime and brienne have known each other for years.

I agree that people in abusive relationships find it hard to quit them, for multiple reasons. But if we are talking about Jaime, he got to the point of leaving cersei over 7 seasons. It wasn't an impulsive decision. Again, if we are looking at a specific case-jaime, he was a really good to break free of the hold his abuser had on him. Him going back to square one was just too pessimistic and fatalistic for me.

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On 5/21/2019 at 9:11 AM, #FreeGhost said:

I'm not sure how I feel about the scene with Ser Brienne completing Jaime's chapter in the book of the Kingsguard. At first, it was "oh, at least they're giving credence to that." However, in the book canon, that Kingsguard book is central to Jaime's redemption arc. Also, it seems that they're using it t gloss over the catastrophe that was Jaime's show character. To me, this was almost troll-level insulting. Like D&D were going out of their way to drop a final 'screw you' to the book readers. Equal parts touching and insulting to me.

Why does his "redemption arc" have to be successful for it not to be insulting? Plenty of people try to do things and fail. He was a terrible person for most of his life.  He did terrible things. He tried to get better. Some struggle with heroin, get off it, then get back on it and overdose. Cersei was Jaime's heroin.

I also think, by the way, that you are generally greatly overstating the degree to which Jaime's redemption failed. He fought the army of the dead. He did nothing after that to help Cersie do bad things. He simply could not stand the idea of her being burned to death alone, so he went back to save her or die with her. That's not such a horrible thing.

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20 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

First of all, welcome!

1) Before anything else, I'm not sure why brienne wrote about Jaime in the book, he was dismissed from the KG.

Let's say she did it for sentimental reasons, ignoring the fact that he wasn't in the KG when he died. I can understand why, she really liked him. And the fact that she was wrting in that book and was sitting at the small council indicated she was LC. Anything more would've been hamfisted.

2) Jaime was with Brienne till everyone reached Dragonstone and a raven was sent to WF about the attack. That would be at least 3 weeks. So it's not one night. Plus, Jaime and brienne have known each other for years.

I agree that people in abusive relationships find it hard to quit them, for multiple reasons. But if we are talking about Jaime, he got to the point of leaving cersei over 7 seasons. It wasn't an impulsive decision. Again, if we are looking at a specific case-jaime, he was a really good to break free of the hold his abuser had on him. Him going back to square one was just too pessimistic and fatalistic for me.

The book records people who were dismissed from the KG. It discussed Lucamore the Lusty, who was gelded by the KG, and Terrence Toyne, who slept with the King's wife and was dismembered.

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15 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

The book records people who were dismissed from the KG. It discussed Lucamore the Lusty, who was gelded by the KG, and Terrence Toyne, who slept with the King's wife and was dismembered.

They were killed because they defied the KG code, correct? They didn't go on to live a life after being dismisssed. In essence they were executed as members of the KG and it. was because of their execution that they ceased to be members.

KG serve for life. Selmy was the first to be dismissed.

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8 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

They were killed because they defied the KG code, correct? They didn't go on to live a life after being dismisssed. In essence they were executed as members of the KG and it. was because of their execution that they ceased to be members.

KG serve for life. Selmy was the first to be dismissed.

I see you want to quibble over whether killing a Kingsguard member amounts to dismissing him. In any case, no. Lucamore was gelded, then sent to the Wall. And it's recorded in the White Book.

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32 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

Why does his "redemption arc" have to be successful for it not to be insulting? Plenty of people try to do things and fail. He was a terrible person for most of his life.  He did terrible things. He tried to get better. Some struggle with heroin, get off it, then get back on it and overdose. Cersei was Jaime's heroin.

I also think, by the way, that you are generally greatly overstating the degree to which Jaime's redemption failed. He fought the army of the dead. He did nothing after that to help Cersie do bad things. He simply could not stand the idea of her being burned to death alone, so he went back to save her or die with her. That's not such a horrible thing.

No two addicts are the same. I'm Jaime's specific case, based on everything he has done across 7 seasons aka his redemption arc, saying he couldn't help himself is just fatalistic.

As for his redemption arc,

3 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

While I agree the show couldve showed his redemption arc better, here is how I saw it.

Season 3: starts caring about someone other than himself and cersei-Brienne. Saves her from being raped, goes back to get her when he didn't have to.

Season 4: sends brienne to find and protect the stark girls despite of cersei wanting them dead.

Season 5: tries to develop a relationship with his daughter myrcella. (Although that dorne plot was horrid)

Season 6: breaks the siege of riverrun without bloodshed. I know what he said in season 8, but I don't think he wouldve hurt edmure's child. And we can disagree on that. 

Season 7: leaves cersei, knowing she is pregnant, to do what is right.

 

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1 minute ago, Forlong the Fat said:

I see you want to quibble over whether killing a Kingsguard member amounts to dismissing him. In any case, no. Lucamore was gelded, then sent to the Wall. And it's recorded in the White Book.

I don't mean to quibble over anything. Joffrey dismissing selmy was a big deal and unprecedented.

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1 minute ago, Apoplexy said:

No two addicts are the same. I'm Jaime's specific case, based on everything he has done across 7 seasons aka his redemption arc, saying he couldn't help himself is just fatalistic.

As for his redemption arc,

 

While I don't agree that Jaime failing is fatalistic, the story is fatalistic about many things.

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1 minute ago, Apoplexy said:

I don't mean to quibble over anything. Joffrey dismissing selmy was a big deal and unprecedented.

What does that have to do with whether it would be normal to complete their entries to reflect their ultimate fate, whether they were kicked out, castrated, dismissed or killed, as was done in the two examples I provided? 

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