Prediction: Jaime's fate

[Jaenara Belarys]

9 hours ago, LynnS said:

Of course, it's all conjecture but I don't think this is the end of the story for Jaime.  So how does he get out of it?

He suddenly becomes James Bond? 

[LynnS]

15 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

He suddenly becomes James Bond? 

LOL!  Or he ends up being sent to Winterfell, where he and his army are sent to the Wall.  The Night Watch has already asked for reinforcements to be sent from Kingslanding.  Cersei makes a mockery of it but will Jaime?  The only war that matters now to Stannis and Mel is the war against the Others.  In this scenario, Jaime is likely to become a believer after encountering LSH.  Stannis isn't likely to look a gift horse in the mouth.

What of Brienne?  A part of me wants her to follow the Hound's cold trail back to the Quiet Isle where she may discover that Arya went to Braavos.  I can see her finding Arya and bringing her back to LSH.  Something tells me it will be Arya as the the dark angel, who will give LSH the gift of mercy.  It would be a terrible wrenching moment. 

[Jaenara Belarys]

7 minutes ago, LynnS said:

LOL!  Or he ends up being sent to Winterfell, where he and his army are sent to the Wall.  The Night Watch has already asked for reinforcements to be sent from Kingslanding.  Cersei makes a mockery of it but will Jaime?  The only war that matters now to Stannis and Mel is the war against the Others.  In this scenario, Jaime is likely to become a believer after encountering LSH.  Stannis isn't likely to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

Yeah, Stannis "might" not, but he might also execute Jaime for the crime of saving KL by butchering the mad king he swore to protect. 

 

8 minutes ago, LynnS said:

What of Brienne?  A part of me wants her to follow the Hound's cold trail back to the Quiet Isle where she may discover that Arya went to Braavos.  I can see her finding Arya and bringing her back to LSH.  Something tells me it will be Arya as the the dark angel, who will give LSH the gift of mercy.  It would be a terrible wrenching moment. 

That would be a nice storyline, but Brienne doesn't know Braavosi or High Valyrian which limits that and how is she going to find Arya if Arya doesn't look like Arya? 

[LynnS]

13 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Yeah, Stannis "might" not, but he might also execute Jaime for the crime of saving KL by butchering the mad king he swore to protect. 

I think he needs Jaime alive more than he needs him dead.  His justice might follow similar lines to Davos who saved them from starving at Storm's End but lost the top of his fingers for smuggling.  Jaime's crimes are worse and so the Wall would be a fit punshment.   Jaime's allegiance to Cersei would come to an end.

17 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

That would be a nice storyline, but Brienne doesn't know Braavosi or High Valyrian which limits that and how is she going to find Arya if Arya doesn't look like Arya? 

Do you think that would stop her?  Does Arya speak Braavosi or High Valyrian?  Perhaps it will be Arya who finds Brienne.

[Jaenara Belarys]

Just now, LynnS said:

Do you think that would stop her?  Does Arya speak Braavosi or High Valyrian?  Perhaps it will be Arya who finds Brienne.

Will Arya TRUST Brienne? It's not like Brienne is going to run around shouting "Arya!". Why would Arya trust her? Arya might think that she's a hunter for Cersei. 

 

1 minute ago, LynnS said:

Do you think that would stop her?  Does Arya speak Braavosi or High Valyrian?  Perhaps it will be Arya who finds Brienne.

OK, I think that could work.....but it depends on Stannis really. 

[HoodedCrow]

Arya can tell when people are lying...

[Jaenara Belarys]

2 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Arya can tell when people are lying...

That's true, I forgot about that. 

[HoodedCrow]

It’s her real superpower.

[Jaenara Belarys]

7 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

It’s her real superpower.

Changing faces ain't a superpower? Of course, that does need some stuff, but she will probably be able to do so. 

[HoodedCrow]

A girl has skills

[LynnS]

29 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Will Arya TRUST Brienne? It's not like Brienne is going to run around shouting "Arya!". Why would Arya trust her? Arya might think that she's a hunter for Cersei. 

I think Brienne would create quite a sensation in Braavos.  A woman of her size dressed as a knight asking after Arya Stark.  Arya would certainly get wind of it.   Wouldn't she want to know why Brienne is looking for her?  How would she react to learn that her 'mother' is looking for her?  I think that would be enough to compel Arya to return to Westeros.   

I'm still expecting Arya to team up with the Hound at some point.

[Mister Smikes]

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm still expecting Arya to team up with the Hound at some point.

Sandor is no longer The Hound.  Still, Arya would probably know Sandor if she saw Sandor again.  And that would spoil the fun.  So it probably won't be Arya who next runs into Sandor.  Probably it will be Sansa -- she of the flaky memory and odd perceptions -- the girl who was too scared to ever look at Sandor's face, and who did not see accurately the one time she was forced to look.

[LynnS]

9 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

Sandor is no longer The Hound.  Still, Arya would probably know Sandor if she saw Sandor again.  And that would spoil the fun.  So it probably won't be Arya who next runs into Sandor.  Probably it will be Sansa -- she of the flaky memory and odd perceptions -- the girl who was too scared to ever look at Sandor's face, and who did not see accurately the one time she was forced to look.

Correct.  The Hound is dead.  That part of him has been excised on the Quiet Isle.  I'm not even sure he will use his own name any longer.  Like Elder Brother, he may choose to be titled after his function - the Grave Digger.  In a sense, he may become No One.  The question is whether he still has a bone to pick with his brother and whether he will be the instrument that puts Robert Strong in his grave for good.  We have been told that no man can kill him.  So the question is whether Arya will be the one who dispatches Robert Strong.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

The great dog. Did she mean the Hound? Or maybe his brother, the Mountain That Rides? Arya was not certain. They bore the same arms, three black dogs on a yellow field. Half the men whose deaths she prayed for belonged to Ser Gregor Clegane; Polliver, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, the Tickler, and Ser Gregor himself. Maybe Lord Beric will hang them all.

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow." She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya. "You cannot hide from me, child. Come closer, now."

I know, everyone will say the maid is Sansa.  But she isn't the medusa that Arya has become, nor does Sansa use poison in the manner of the FM.  The feast the GoHH is referring to the part that Arya played in the Weasel Soup episode.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"Yes." He did not sound very proud of it. "I was at the Mummer's Ford. When Lord Beric fell into the river, I dragged him up onto the bank so he wouldn't drown and stood over him with my sword. I never had to fight, though. He had a broken lance sticking out of him, so no one bothered us. When we regrouped, Green Gergen helped pull his lordship back onto a horse."

Arya was remembering the stableboy at King's Landing. After him there'd been that guard whose throat she cut at Harrenhal, and Ser Amory's men at that holdfast by the lake. She didn't know if Weese and Chiswyck counted, or the ones who'd died on account of the weasel soup . . . all of a sudden, she felt very sad. "My father was called Ned too," she said.

In the Epilogue of Dance; it is beginning to snow in Kings Landing.  The castle built of snow may just be covered in snow.

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Epilogue

The messenger was a boy of eight or nine, so bundled up in fur he seemed a bear cub. Trant had kept him waiting out on the drawbridge rather than admit him into Maegor's. "Go find a fire, lad," Ser Kevan told him, pressing a penny into his hand. "I know the way to the rookery well enough."

The snow had finally stopped falling. Behind a veil of ragged clouds, a full moon floated fat and white as a snowball. The stars shone cold and distant. As Ser Kevan made his way across the inner ward, the castle seemed an alien place, where every keep and tower had grown icy teeth, and all familiar paths had vanished beneath a white blanket. Once an icicle long as a spear fell to shatter by his feet. Autumn in King's Landing, he brooded. What must it be like up on the Wall?

As for Sansa, she isn't the same songbird in a cage, that she was at Kingslanding.  She is Baelish's apprentice now and has become a mockingbird.  Soon to become a hawk, a bird of prey.  I expect she will not need rescuing.  But I do think Brienne, once delivered of Arya would continue the search.  Going south to pick up another cold trail, entirely the wrong direction.  

[Brother Seamus]

On 5/5/2021 at 3:24 AM, Mister Smikes said:

Maybe, just maybe, these details are a clue that your ideas about the "meta-narrative" do not match those of GRRM.

The only part that seems plausible to me is that he can perhaps play a role in Cersei's death, as (perhaps) foreshadowed by the valonquar prophesy.  But of course he can do that as a undead hell zombie with an animated golden hand.

As for resisting the Others, it seems to me more likely that he will help them, directly or indirectly, by becoming himself one of the undead minions of Death.  Perhaps he will become an undead Azor Ahai, wielding a red hot flaming sword in his animated golden hand, and sacrificing the lives of all and sundry for the sake of the "greater good".

 GRRM said that his original plan was to tell the entire story from the POV of the 6 povs who survived book 1.   I see no proof that his plan has changed all that much.  I think the extra POVs are introduced for limited and temporary purposes.  I think you are making assumptions about those purposes that are not necessarily correct.  And I don't think Jaime has replaced Dany, Tyrion and the Starks as the new central protagonist.  I suspect his POV has ended, and we will learn about what has happened to him -- or about what he has become -- from other more-central protagonists.

Also, GRRM told a French newspaper back in 2013 that he expected TWOW to have 13 or so POVs (including some who will not make it to the end).  Which sure as hell sounds like, out of the 20 surviving POVs, some will be dropped.  I sure sounds as though at least some fans who regard their new favorite POV character as too important to lose are going to be disappointed.

Also, there is no particular need for Jaime do die in the first quarter of TWOW.  Jaime expected a day's ride with Brienne.  But now WEEKS have lapsed, and he is missing.  Whatever happened we missed it, and if he has died, he is dead already.

Also, what "redemption arc"?   Jaime is completely unrepentant.  

That's a mighty big assumption.

He's completely unrepentant too.  And yet I keep hearing talk about "redemption".  Sandor is plausibly on some kind of redemption arc.  Jaime is not.

On the other hand, maybe Jaime does not HAVE to be redeemed.  Perhaps he can stay a villain.  That being the case, I do not see that any of the above is helpful or necessary.

we'll see. I hope.

if we do, mark my words: Bran is the most important protagonist, and Jaime doesn't die until the end, i.e. the last 1/4 of the last book. how he gets out the current predicament with Brienne and LSH is unknown and admittedly hard to imagine - but he will. i'd put good money on it.

[chrisdaw]

It's not going to be complicated. They simply don't kill him because they don't want to. Either they (Stoneheart really)have political plans that involve him as their hostage or want to torture him or want to save him up for a big show death or want him to live to see everyone he loved die or something else I haven't thought of. He stays in captivity for a long while, locking him away for the Second Dance between Aegon and Dany which he doesn't need to be involved in, and has to not die in. He becomes free when Arya finally makes her way back to the BwB and Stoneheart and the BwB fall.

[Mister Smikes]

2 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

It's not going to be complicated. They simply don't kill him because they don't want to. Either they (Stoneheart really)have political plans that involve him as their hostage or want to torture him or want to save him up for a big show death or want him to live to see everyone he loved die or something else I haven't thought of. 

Well, who knows what will happen.  But if Stoneheart does not want to kill Jaime, she sure fooled me.   Or maybe Lem has fooled us all, by mistranslation.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

Well, who knows what will happen.  But if Stoneheart does not want to kill Jaime, she sure fooled me.   Or maybe Lem has fooled us all, by mistranslation.

Coming back to your proposal about Jaime transformed by fire.  I think this is entirely possible.  LSH may want him dead, but I think the old gods have plans for him:

'Bran's coma dream:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

He looked east, and saw a galley racing across the waters of the Bite. He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it.

He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. "The things I do for love," it said.

Bran screamed.

The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran's shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone.

The man armored like the sun is Jaime and the Bran needed him or will need him at some point.  The 3EC buries the memory of Jaime pushing Bran out of the tower.  

Bran sees Jaime's face shining like the sun.  It's the soul that Bran sees, of what Jaime might become - the Warrior of Light.

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 5/8/2021 at 7:49 AM, LynnS said:

Yes, he is screwed.  LSH wants him dead and so does the jury. The only way out for him, that I can see is a trial by combat.  We have the example of Lysa Arryn and Tyrion.  The only reason she agreed to it was because she thought she couldn't lose, that Tyrion couldn't win in combat.  Then he gets a champion and the tables are turned.  The BwB may think the same thing about Jaime; that he can't possibly win without his sword hand.  He can then ask for a champion and I think the only one who would do that for him is Brienne.  Since Brienne is the one who delivers Jaime to LSH, nobody will be expecting her to be his champion.

Of course, it's all conjecture but I don't think this is the end of the story for Jaime.  So how does he get out of it?

Like this...

 

[Mister Smikes]

38 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Coming back to your proposal about Jaime transformed by fire.  I think this is entirely possible.  LSH may want him dead, but I think the old gods have plans for him:

Or the Fire God has plans for him ... or for his corpse.

As for his spirit, his wierwood dream seems to see him trapped a sort of underworld, in the realm of the dead.

Quote

'Bran's coma dream:

The man armored like the sun is Jaime and the Bran needed him or will need him at some point. 

The figures in Bran's coma dream are referred to as "shadows".  Fire wights are also referred to as "shadows", at least by Thoros ("A grimmer shadow leads us in his place.")

Bran also has a vision where he sees (I suppose) Jaime (and Cersei) as things that once were lions, but now have become something "twisted and grotesque".  Of course, one could easily read this as a reference to what they have already become now, and not to what they will become in future.

Quote

Bran sees Jaime's face shining like the sun. 

I always assumed that it was the golden armor that was "shining like the sun".  Otherwise the figure itself could hardly be called a "shadow".

 

[LynnS]

8 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

Or the Fire God has plans for him ... or for his corpse.

When I say the old gods, I'm including R'hllor since Jaqen H'gar includes him of fire in the oath he makes to Arya.  Bran may need Jaime for something in the past/present/future; but it may be R'hllor who delivers him to Bran.  More specifically, it could be Mel who gives Jaime the firey kiss, since it's her mission to find and make the Warrior of Light. 

8 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

I always assumed that it was the golden armor that was "shining like the sun".  Otherwise the figure itself could hardly be called a "shadow".

Yes.  Mel also tells us that there can be no shadows without light.  It's curious that Bran isn't  shown the identities of the three figures: the shadow with the terrible face of the hound;  the shadow armoured like sun and the giant standing over them from behind.

The Undying would say that that the shadows are the shapes of things to come.  We can make a guess on the first two.  The third is a bit more cryptic, but I think it represents the Titan of Braavos, it's founder, a faceless man.  

8 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

Bran also has a vision where he sees (I suppose) Jaime (and Cersei) as things that once were lions, but now have become something "twisted and grotesque".  Of course, one could easily read this as a reference to what they have already become now, and not to what they will become in future.

I agree, the lions that become gargoyles represent Cersei and Jaime, their souls twisted.  It's the supressed memory coming back into his dreams.   Jaime's soul needs a cleansing.