Jaime and Loras

[Alester Florent]

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I agree, that could potentially serve as a Watsonian explanation for something I've been explaining Doylistically, but to get technical here we're only comparing Game to Clash (where he was not yet a POV character).

Is there any evidence of that in Game?

No, but then, in AGoT we don't get a POV from Jaime or from any characters close to him. We don't really know anything about him except that he killed Aerys - and we don't know why he did that.

AGoT is pretty close to, if not actually, his character nadir, it's true. This is the point from which his redemption arc starts. The good man within him is pretty well buried at this point. But there is one slight hint which is that he is still the only person, pretty much in Westeros, who gives a damn about Tyrion. This can't be pinned solely on the family connection, since Tywin and Cersei both despise Tyrion and nobody thinks any the less of them for it. Caring about his brother is really the one area where Jaime hasn't subordinated himself wholly to those two.

I will admit that "caring about your brother" is a low bar and not in itself sufficient to make you a good person, per se. But it's an area where Jaime's humanity does show through, the one chink in his armour of contempt that later gets levered open as he gets to know Brienne and turns him from the guy everyone loves to hate in AGoT to the guy a lot of people just straight up love in AFfC.

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Did he have a "personal grievance" with Bran, the kid just climbing around his own family's property in a place he had no reason to expect anyone else to be? As he did it, he claimed it was "for love" rather than grievance.

"Grievance" is putting it strongly, but Bran was a clear and present danger to him and Cersei. There was a reason for killing him, and killing him personally, rather than killing one of Bran's minions, say. It is not a reason we find sympathetic, but silencing a probably damning witness is absolutely clear motive.

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

If he had personally stolen Ice out of Ned's scabbard, that would fit. But he didn't.

This is because you're not thinking like a Westerosi noble. Which Jaime is, even if he's not technically able to inherit anything: he's the eldest son of one of the oldest and most powerful and prestigious families in Westeros, and spends all his time hanging out at the royal court.

To the mind of a Westerosi noble, the commoner retainers of a rival lord (especially non-knigthly ones) are closer to property of that lord than they are people in their own right.

When you order your troops into battle to kill another lord's soldiers, the real target is the other lord, not the men who will actually die. When you order your men to raid and pillage to weaken a lord's position, your aim is to punish that lord, not any of the specific peasants who end up dying or being pillaged. It doesn't matter whether your guys kill Soldier A or Soldier B, it doesn't matter if they raid Village C instead of Village D, but it does matter if they raid Lord E's village instead of Lord F's.

Likewise, Jaime orders Ned's men killed not because they're important, but because they belong to Ned. If Ned had shown up with three completely different guys, the order would be exactly the same.

This differs from the Bran situation because Bran is a "somebody".

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Now you're saying something different from your earlier quote about getting his hands dirty. Why would "look[ing] in the eye" be important? Jaime confesses that he discussed making a second murder attempt on a comatose Bran, and the reason he held off was not that Bran's eyes would be closed. And if you claim that giving an order is metaphorically getting his hands dirty, recall that Tywin arranged for Walder Frey to carry out the RW in order to keep Tywin's own hands clean with the blood just on Walder's.

There's a difference of degree of separation there (giving an order directly on the spot vs negotiating a killing by correspondence), and there's also an issue of honour. Tywin's smug "tell me how it's more noble to kill a load of men in battle than it is a handful at dinner" moment didn't wash with Tyrion, and it's hard to see Jaime agreeing either. (Leaving aside that it also broke perhaps the biggest taboo in Westerosi society).

The fight with Ned's men may not have been fair but it was at least a fight and that kind of distinction matters in Westeros.

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

In what sense is it "right"? It's certainly not "more" faithful to the book than the book itself is.

Of course not; that would be a ridiculous claim, which is why I didn't make it. But I do think that, having inserted an unnecessary fight between Jaime and Ned, the resolution of it did fit with Jaime's character even if it wasn't immediately apparent how or why.

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Those are very different things. How are they both "taking personal responsibility"?

Not just, to me it seems like multiple different principles!

I don't think other Westerosi nobles think it's acceptable to sleep with your own sister, to kill a king you swore to protect, to cuckold another king and claim you'll kill him if he catches you, to throw a child out a window and then plot to kill that child before he can wake up, to seek out that child's sister to kill or permanently mutilate because your sister/lover asked for it in revenge for something your king already dismissed, to threaten and then violently "warn" the father of both those children (also the best friend of the king you're supposed to be serving), then to run off & abandon your post dedicated to said king in order to pursue your family's vendetta against the in-laws of said father despite your KG oath superseding any such family loyalty. Jaime is distinctive for REJECTING the normal ideals of Westerosi nobles, saying there are too many conflicting oaths for him to obey all of them, so he just dismisses them.

He rejects a lot of them, but there will be elements of his upbringing and conditioning that will affect the way he sees the world. Despite his rejection of many of the principles that characterise Westerosi nobles, he remains much closer to the noble ideal than he does a commoner, and indeed he remains much closer to the noble/knightly ideal than, say, Sandor Clegane, who is similarly cynical about the system but much less invested in it.

It is one thing to say "I love my sister, therefore I will defy the taboo (which the Targs themselves violated anyway) against incest" or "these oaths I have sworn are internally inconsistent so I have to break one of them, and it's ridiculous that people expect me to do anyhing else", and quite another to change your whole means of perception of the relationship of smallfolk to nobles, especially when the existing perception you have (that a lord's retainers are functionally the property of that lord rather than having individual agency relevant to you) is pretty much accurate in the context of the society you live in.

And I think Jaime's rejection of norms is overstated. At heart, Jaime does still aspire to being a great knight in the image of those who he venerated when he was young. During AGoT he seems to have given up on this being possible and stopped caring about those principles, but again as his eyes get opened and he starts to understand that even if nobody else respects him, he can regain his own self-respect by adhering to those principles, they all come out again. It suggests, I think, that it was the cynical, disaffected, ruthless Jaime that was the construct, and the "real" Jaime is the one who rescued Tysha from rapists, who pleaded with Rhaegar to fix the rottenness at the heart of Aerys's rule, who hunted down and killed the pyromancers without hope of recognition or gratitude to keep a city safe.

He mouths off about these contradictions to Cat and his supposed rejection of them not because he thinks the whole system is fundamentally wrong, but because he wants to fit into it and can't: it bothers him because he still cares.

That's my opinion, anyway.

6 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

t was certainly personal to Jaime, he was very upset about his brother being seized.

Why wouldn't he? He brags about doing his own killing, and that would be an example.He cared enough to order them dead.

I feel like you're almost deliberately missing the point here.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

Jaime is warden of the west, so to say he is at same station as Jory is wrong.

Jory isn't even a knight, after all. And Jaime is one of the Kingsguard: to the extent that that is a "glorified bodyguard", that glorification is, to the characters in question, extremely important. As, for that matter, is Jaime's family. A Lannister of Casterly Rock is never going to be on the same level as a Cassell from wherever-the-hell.

If Jory were a knight Jaime might treat him with a bit more respect in that street meeting, possibly even kill him in person, like he does in the show.

[Apoplexy]

8 minutes ago, Adelstein said:

Jory isn't even a knight, after all. And Jaime is one of the Kingsguard: to the extent that that is a "glorified bodyguard", that glorification is, to the characters in question, extremely important. As, for that matter, is Jaime's family. A Lannister of Casterly Rock is never going to be on the same level as a Cassell from wherever-the-hell.

If Jory were a knight Jaime might treat him with a bit more respect in that street meeting, possibly even kill him in person, like he does in the show.

Exactly. We know Jory's name only because of the vast number of Stark POV characters. To anyone else, he would be some random household guard. Westeros is not an egalitarian society. 

[FictionIsntReal]

On 1/27/2022 at 6:17 PM, Apoplexy said:

Jaime is warden of the west

I think you mean warden of the east. Tywin is warden of the west.

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How is Loras or any other knight any different than Jaime,? They should all be hypocritical as per your description. Why single Jaime out?

Plenty of people are hypocritical, so Loras could well qualify. But when I listed all the ways Jaime deviates from the norms of his peers, none of them apply to Loras. There were people who expected Loras to violate his KG oath and kill Joffrey once he eventually went too far with Margaery, but he hadn't actually done so yet. Loras is also implied to have been in a sexual relationship with Renly while in the Rainbow Guard, but since the actual KG already existed and that was an entirely separate organization, it's unclear whether he should be held to the same standards (as a member of the actual KG, Loras is not known to have violated any oath).

On 1/27/2022 at 7:00 PM, Adelstein said:

No, but then, in AGoT we don't get a POV from Jaime or from any characters close to him. We don't really know anything about him except that he killed Aerys - and we don't know why he did that.

We know more than what we've heard of his past, we observe him directly. It's in another character's POV chapter in Clash that we get him saying he does his own killing.

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This is the point from which his redemption arc starts.

I think the decision to give him a POV in ASoS points to that being where his arc starts. Clash just reframes him as a character who could potentially have such an arc.

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This can't be pinned solely on the family connection

Wouldn't Jaime give a damn about Tyrion if they weren't family? Cersei taking such a different stance toward someone she's equally related to as Jaime just shows how extra horrible she is.

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I will admit that "caring about your brother" is a low bar and not in itself sufficient to make you a good person, per se.

It's particularly glaring since the Lannisters being willing to hurt others on behalf of their kin is what causes the conflict. Jaime throws Bran out a window so he isn't caught with Cersei, thus revealing their children are bastards born of incest (causing both Ned & Catelyn to understand Cersei's reaction). Jaime attacks Ned's men and helps his father attack the Riverlands in revenge for Tyrion's arrest, which is the injustice the Brotherhood is still fighting against. Cersei schemes for Robert to die and Ned to be arrested (killing even more of the people he brought to KL in the process) to ensure they stay on top rather than fleeing into exile when given the chance.

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the guy a lot of people just straight up love in AFfC.

A guy who is still acting like a mob-enforcer in the Riverlands, and thinks his family should be above the laws of gods & men like the Targaryens.

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rather than killing one of Bran's minions, say

What minions? He wasn't even riding Hodor yet!

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To the mind of a Westerosi noble, the commoner retainers of a rival lord (especially non-knigthly ones)

Knighthood is relatively uncommon in the North, but Jory was able to participate in the tourney with Jaime as a peer.

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are closer to property of that lord than they are people in their own right.

You seem to be mistaking feudalism for slavery. The Ironborn have thralls that they treat like slaves, but even the lowly peasants of Westeros are above that, and are supposed to have customary rights (however paltry by modern standards) their lords respect. It is the case that attacking the vassals (this applies to nobles, who are undoubtedly "people") of a lord is like attacking that lord. Lords are supposed to have an obligation to their vassals to protect them in return for service.

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When you order your troops into battle to kill another lord's soldiers, the real target is the other lord

It is literally the case in such battles: capturing a rival lord is the best possible outcome. Jaime wasn't trying to take Ned captive to trade against Tyrion, he was instead running away before the goldcloaks could arrive.

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When you order your men to raid and pillage to weaken a lord's position, your aim is to punish that lord, not any of the specific peasants who end up dying or being pillaged.

And when Jaime joined in the attacks in the Riverlands, he actually did personally take part in the fighting (which is how he eventually got captured).

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This differs from the Bran situation because Bran is a "somebody".

How big does Bran or anyone else have to be in order to be a "somebody"? I've talked about how Jory is no Mycah (who was himself allegedly punished for his own actions rather than some lord he served).

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The fight with Ned's men may not have been fair but it was at least a fight and that kind of distinction matters in Westeros.

It was a fight Jaime himself ran from rather than participate in. He ran to escape the consequences wrought by him aggressing against another lord, which is the same sort of thing that would motivate someone to hire an assassin rather than personally committing a murder.

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But I do think that, having inserted an unnecessary fight between Jaime and Ned

It was necessary to the show, because they were already writing Jaime differently than he had been in the first book. They let us see Jaime in scenes that aren't with any of the POVs from that first book, and they had him talking to Ned about killing the Mad King and saying how it felt like justice.

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the resolution of it did fit with Jaime's character even if it wasn't immediately apparent how or why

It fit his character on the show, not in the book, where he's explicitly given an entirely different motivation for leaving Ned alive (and he's not around to try to take Ned as a captive).

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he remains much closer to the noble/knightly ideal than, say, Sandor Clegane, who is similarly cynical about the system but much less invested in it.

Sandor Clegane explicitly says that he spits on knighthood, but he never killed any king he was sworn to protect, and he didn't abandon his post until the Blackwater was on fire.

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quite another to change your whole means of perception of the relationship of smallfolk to nobles

Jory took part in the tourney with Jaime, he is a peer rather than a smallfolk.

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the existing perception you have (that a lord's retainers are functionally the property of that lord rather than having individual agency relevant to you) is pretty much accurate in the context of the society you live in

Again, feudalism is not slavery. Jory was not chattel.

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who pleaded with Rhaegar to fix the rottenness at the heart of Aerys's rule

When did he do that? He just wanted to fight alongside other knights rather than be Aerys' "crutch" against Tywin.

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who hunted down and killed the pyromancers without hope of recognition or gratitude to keep a city safe.

This is ranging a bit off-topic, but there's another thread where I defend Jaime against the charge that he was always plotting to betray Aerys in favor of his family, but also say that his killing of the other pyromancers doesn't seem to have been necessary since they weren't actually causing any problems days later. The perverse result was actually to prevent the secret from getting out and thus keep KL more of a powderkeg!

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He mouths off about these contradictions to Cat and his supposed rejection of them not because he thinks the whole system is fundamentally wrong, but because he wants to fit into it and can't: it bothers him because he still cares.

He's justifying himself in the face of Catelyn's accusations.

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Jory isn't even a knight, after all.

Knighthood is less common in the North, but his father is one. Jory was permitted by King Robert to face other knights in the tourney (although we know other tourneys like Ashford's are exclusively for knights). Bran isn't a knight either, but if it was proved that Jaime actually had hired the assassin he wouldn't then say to Catelyn "It doesn't count because he was just a child, and therefore an extension or property of his parents, rather than an actual person".

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A Lannister of Casterly Rock is never going to be on the same level as a Cassell from wherever-the-hell.

The problem is that the Lannisters view themselves above EVERYONE.

On 1/27/2022 at 7:14 PM, Apoplexy said:

We know Jory's name only because of the vast number of Stark POV characters. To anyone else, he would be some random household guard. Westeros is not an egalitarian society. 

Jory competed in the Hand's Tourney, other participants would know who he was and that he was not some peasant.

[Apoplexy]

17 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Plenty of people are hypocritical, so Loras could well qualify. But when I listed all the ways Jaime deviates from the norms of his peers, none of them apply to Loras. There were people who expected Loras to violate his KG oath and kill Joffrey once he eventually went too far with Margaery, but he hadn't actually done so yet. Loras is also implied to have been in a sexual relationship with Renly while in the Rainbow Guard, but since the actual KG already existed and that was an entirely separate organization, it's unclear whether he should be held to the same standards (as a member of the actual KG, Loras is not known to have violated any oath).

I'm going to say I disagree. This just sounds like Jaime hate.

[FictionIsntReal]

59 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

I'm going to say I disagree. This just sounds like Jaime hate.

Which thing that I listed is Loras also guilty of? In case you need a reminder:

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I don't think other Westerosi nobles think it's acceptable to sleep with your own sister, to kill a king you swore to protect, to cuckold another king and claim you'll kill him if he catches you, to throw a child out a window and then plot to kill that child before he can wake up, to seek out that child's sister to kill or permanently mutilate because your sister/lover asked for it in revenge for something your king already dismissed, to threaten and then violently "warn" the father of both those children (also the best friend of the king you're supposed to be serving), then to run off & abandon your post dedicated to said king in order to pursue your family's vendetta against the in-laws of said father despite your KG oath superseding any such family loyalty.

 

[Apoplexy]

2 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Which thing that I listed is Loras also guilty of? In case you need a reminder:

2 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I don't think other Westerosi nobles think it's acceptable to sleep with your own sister, to kill a king you swore to protect, to cuckold another king and claim you'll kill him if he catches you, to throw a child out a window and then plot to kill that child before he can wake up, to seek out that child's sister to kill or permanently mutilate because your sister/lover asked for it in revenge for something your king already dismissed, to threaten and then violently "warn" the father of both those children (also the best friend of the king you're supposed to be serving), then to run off & abandon your post dedicated to said king in order to pursue your family's vendetta against the in-laws of said father despite your KG oath superseding any such family loyalty.

 

This is just hate for the sake of hate. Targs have been incestuous for centuries, Loras had an affair with king renly and killed two of his fellow KG. As for Bran, thats a whole different discussion. Even Cat and Ned try to think what they woukd do if they were in Jaime's place. Ideating killing arya is not the same as doing it. And loyalty to family at the cost of someone else's detriment is something that almost every character shown at some point of another. Relentless vitriol towards any character is just tiresome.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 1/29/2022 at 7:44 PM, Apoplexy said:

Targs have been incestuous for centuries

Yes, and the non-Targ Westerosi regard it as an abomination. Loras is not known to have committed it, so bringing it up is irrelevant to him.

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Loras had an affair with king renly

Right, and I noted he was in the Rainbow Guard (which contained Lord Bryce Caron, who did not disavow his title & land when joining) rather than the actual KG. After he joined the actual KG he kept his vows, as far as we know.

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and killed two of his fellow KG

When KG fail to protect their king, they have been held responsible (although I think it's dumb the rule is damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't when a rival king takes over), and sent to the Wall or killed. Of course, Loras' brothers then were RG rather than actual KG.

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Even Cat and Ned try to think what they woukd do if they were in Jaime's place

They understand why he did what he did (not that they would ever put themselves in such a position), but neither they (nor Loras) did that themselves. Rather, Ned acted to protect even his enemy's children.

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Ideating killing arya is not the same as doing it

He didn't merely think about it, he sought to find her first before Ned's men so he could do so. He merely failed in his aims, just as he failed to kill Bran.

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And loyalty to family at the cost of someone else's detriment is something that almost every character shown at some point of another.

It's a common motivation, but the point of joining an order like the KG (or NW, for that matter) is to put aside that motivation. Robb executes one of his own vassals, despite that man claiming it's kinslaying, in retribution for the murder of enemy hostages. That shows he doesn't simply rank his own over everybody else.

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Relentless vitriol towards any character is just tiresome.

Like I said, you can check out a different thread for me defending Jaime. I listed all those examples of him violating Westerosi norms in response to people saying he was no different from any other noble.

[Apoplexy]

On 1/31/2022 at 4:19 PM, FictionIsntReal said:

Yes, and the non-Targ Westerosi regard it as an abomination. Loras is not known to have committed it, so bringing it up is irrelevant to him.

Right, and I noted he was in the Rainbow Guard (which contained Lord Bryce Caron, who did not disavow his title & land when joining) rather than the actual KG. After he joined the actual KG he kept his vows, as far as we know.

When KG fail to protect their king, they have been held responsible (although I think it's dumb the rule is damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't when a rival king takes over), and sent to the Wall or killed. Of course, Loras' brothers then were RG rather than actual KG.

They understand why he did what he did (not that they would ever put themselves in such a position), but neither they (nor Loras) did that themselves. Rather, Ned acted to protect even his enemy's children.

He didn't merely think about it, he sought to find her first before Ned's men so he could do so. He merely failed in his aims, just as he failed to kill Bran.

It's a common motivation, but the point of joining an order like the KG (or NW, for that matter) is to put aside that motivation. Robb executes one of his own vassals, despite that man claiming it's kinslaying, in retribution for the murder of enemy hostages. That shows he doesn't simply rank his own over everybody else.

Like I said, you can check out a different thread for me defending Jaime. I listed all those examples of him violating Westerosi norms in response to people saying he was no different from any other noble.

If you really think Jaime violates Westerosi norms in a way that is singular, I have nothing further to add. And if you are splitting hairs about the rainbowguard vs kingsguard, I'm going to say we disagree and leave it there.