The Targaryens and the wrongs done to them.

[Arthur Peres]

Readers need to stop pretending that Jaime was a hero when he killed Aerys.

Aerys was awful and I don't hold that death against Jaime, but stop pretending that he did because "it was the right thing to do". Jaime never told anybody about the plan to blow up the city and also took no action against that later.

He already killed Rossart and stopped the imediatly explosion, Tywin already had the control over the city, Aerys fate already was sealed as after the deed Jaime was caught red handed by two of Tywin's bannerman.

Jaime did not kill Aerys because he needed or because it was right, he did it because he wanted it.

The whole talk about too many oaths is just a weak excuse in the case of Jaime, he never cared about the oaths in the first place. He made a celibate oath just to keep banging his sister...

[Reekazoid]

On 10/13/2022 at 1:14 PM, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

No matter what Jaime was going to have to break one of his oaths.

Ayep... you got that right.  The author told us this outright.

Quote

Jaime reached for the flagon to refill his cup. "So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other."   - A Clash of Kings, Catelyn VII

 

[Reekazoid]

3 hours ago, Arthur Peres said:

Readers need to stop pretending that Jaime was a hero when he killed Aerys.

Aerys was awful and I don't hold that death against Jaime, but stop pretending that he did because "it was the right thing to do". Jaime never told anybody about the plan to blow up the city and also took no action against that later.

He already killed Rossart and stopped the imediatly explosion, Tywin already had the control over the city, Aerys fate already was sealed as after the deed Jaime was caught red handed by two of Tywin's bannerman.

Jaime did not kill Aerys because he needed or because it was right, he did it because he wanted it.

The whole talk about too many oaths is just a weak excuse in the case of Jaime, he never cared about the oaths in the first place. He made a celibate oath just to keep banging his sister...

Heroism is not binary in these stories, nor is villainy.  Everything is gray.  No one is always a hero... not Ned Stark, not Barristan Selmy, not Arthur Dayne, not Daenerys Targaryen... you get the idea.  Now surely some characters are less redeemable than others, but even that bar is set ambiguously at times.  If we read fairly and with intellectual honesty we can see that the relative heroism and villainy in a gray world should be measured by context, choice,  and outcomes as much as anything else and certainly more so than idealistic concepts such as vaguely-defined codes of honor, conflicting vows, or racial ancestry.  

Sure, Jamie is no "hero" but he is also no Ser Amery Lorch, nor is he even a Weeper or a Vargo Hoat.  I personally think it is unfair to throw extra villain points at Jamie because the king he justifiably killed - in a remarkable show of maturity and courage, I might add - happened to be a Targaryen king.   How dare he!  Didn't he know that Targz are better than everyone because they have unusual coloration and used to ride around on dragons?  They aren't better, though. They're just store-brand Atlanteans that couldn't even rule a less advanced society for very long without losing all their magic swords, killing each other off, and murdering all of their own fire lizards.   *Slow clap*

[Reekazoid]

3 hours ago, Arthur Peres said:

The whole talk about too many oaths is just a weak excuse in the case of Jaime, he never cared about the oaths in the first place. He made a celibate oath just to keep banging his sister...

Aerys banged his sister too.  Raped her, in fact.  And mutilated her repeatedly. Jamie wanted to protect the queen, but other "more honorable" knights prevented him from doing so, because apparently being a Targaryen king gives you license to main, rape, and brutalize your own sister?   At least Jamie's sister was a willing participant.

[Reekazoid]

4 hours ago, King_Hodor_the_Short said:

I do wonder why Jaime was allowed to remain on the KG, obviously it was up to Robert but I don't know how he'd be comfortable with Jaime in his KG 

 

3 hours ago, Jon Fossoway said:

Tywin Lannister

This.  Also remember that Robert was not a very imaginative or introspective person. He seems to me to be the kind to make decisions on the fly, stick to them, and then accept the results.  He killed Rhaegar on the Trident but he was completely prepared to die there too.  He didn't carry any prophecies with him into battle, just his hammer.

I am sure that Robert did not want to waste his conscious thought on fear and mistrust of Jamie, and even though it is not written in the text, I speculate that the story and context of why Jamie killed Aerys would have been told to Tywin, Jon Arryn, and Robert at the very least, and if that were the case I can easily picture Robert mulling it over for a few seconds, deciding that it is what he would have likely done in Jamie's shoes, then shrugging it off to move on to something else.

[Arthur Peres]

15 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

Aerys banged his sister too.  Raped her, in fact.  And mutilated her repeatedly. Jamie wanted to protect the queen, but other "more honorable" knights prevented him from doing so, because apparently being a Targaryen king gives you license to main, rape, and brutalize your own sister?   At least Jamie's sister was a willing participant.

This is just what aboutism, and does nothing to clean Jaime. Aerys being rotten does nothing for Jaime's cause.

Jaime's complain about oath is pure hipocrisy, he never intended to keep any of them, the celibacy being just the biggest example. Would be one thing to hear that speech from Barristan, but from Jaime is just pure BS.

24 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

Heroism is not binary in these stories, nor is villainy.  Everything is gray.  No one is always a hero... not Ned Stark, not Barristan Selmy, not Arthur Dayne, not Daenerys Targaryen... you get the idea.  Now surely some characters are less redeemable than others, but even that bar is set ambiguously at times.

I never said anything about a pure hero or villain. Just that Jaime's murder of Aerys had nothing to do with good intention. He killed Aerys because he wanted, not for any moral belive. Jaime's act are no diferent from a domestic cat killing a bird.

 

26 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

Sure, Jamie is no "hero" but he is also no Ser Amery Lorch, nor is he even a Weeper or a Vargo Hoat.  I personally think it is unfair to throw extra villain points at Jamie because the king he justifiably killed - in a remarkable show of maturity and courage, I might add - happened to be a Targaryen king.   How dare he!  Didn't he know that Targz are better than everyone because they have unusual coloration and used to ride around on dragons?  They aren't better, though. They're just store-brand Atlanteans that couldn't even rule a less advanced society for very long without losing all their magic swords, killing each other off, and murdering all of their own fire lizards.   *Slow clap*

All this character are monsters... And I never brought any of them in the conversation. Agains this is just What aboutism.

[Reekazoid]

2 minutes ago, Arthur Peres said:

This is just what aboutism, and does nothing to clean Jaime. Aerys being rotten does nothing for Jaime's cause.

Jaime's complain about oath is pure hipocrisy, he never intended to keep any of them, the celibacy being just the biggest example. Would be one thing to hear that speech from Barristan, but from Jaime is just pure BS.

I never said anything about a pure hero or villain. Just that Jaime's murder of Aerys had nothing to do with good intention. He killed Aerys because he wanted, not for any moral belive. Jaime's act are no diferent from a domestic cat killing a bird.

 

All this character are monsters... And I never brought any of them in the conversation. Agains this is just What aboutism.

Jamie's killing of Aerys is a self-redemptive action, because the action resulted in an instantaneous and permanent saving of thousands of lives.  There is no further justification needed.

 

My point in bringing up the other characters is that at least one of them was a anointed knight, who had sworn vows not to do teethings they did. Each of the three from different cultures with different notions of honor did things that no one would consider honorable, whereas Jamie did none of those things.  This is in general support of the grayness of characters and the vague and poorly implemented system of vows and conceptions of honor.

 

As far "whataboutism" I am pretty sure you brought up the sister-banging yourself.  The way in which y ou said it made me think that you thought it was a bad thing, but that did not make sense to me because you are not also criticizing Aerys Targaryen  for doing the same thing to his sister.  I mentioned that Aerys Targaryen  repeatedly raped and mutilated his sister, and act that you may actually be defending, by not condemning it now that it has been brought into the conversation. Jamie knew bout the repeated  sexual violence perpetrated by Aerys Targaryen and it is stated in the text that he wanted to do something about it, but was prevented from doing so because Aerys Targaryen was the king. 

 

Don't take it too hard, I really enjoy reminding people what an absolute piece of shit Aerys was.  If I can come and do it in a 
"oh noes the poor wronged Targeryens" thread, it makes me double happy.

 

As others pointed out above, by the time Jamie killed Aerys the rebellion was over,  the city had fallen to the rebels, the Red Keep had been breached, and Aerys Targaryen was king of nothing.  Aerys Targaryen knew this and wanted to take everyone down with him, and  Jamie decided to stop him.  Jamie would have died in the fire as well, so he was also saving his own life by killing Aerys Targaryen.

 

So let us recap:

Reasons why Jamie Might Have Killed Aerys Targaryen:

- Save innocent lives in King's Landing from wildfire (this counts as part of knight's oath)

- Save rebel army from wildfire (counts as implicit family oath)

- Save himself from wildfire (self defense)

- Execute a former king (as stated above, Aerys had already lost. At this point in time, he wasn't even king anymore) who was an insane murderer (falls under knight's oath)

- Execute a former king who was a serial rapist (yep, knight's oath)

- Save the kingdom from further way by removing the deposed king of the former regime from the political equation

- (Possibly) obeying an order from his father (implicit family oath)

- for the lulz

 

So we have all these vows floating around, but we don't have an established hierarchy of vows.  What is more important, the vow of chastity or the vow of loyalty to your king or your vow to protect the weak?

My dude, you mention that Jamie killed The Mad Rapist King Aerys Targaryen because he wanted to, but I am not finding textual  support but I would like to read some if you have it.  From my readings, Jamie never killed anyone except in battle before he executed Aerys, so we don't have an established pattern of wanton violence and killing for pleasure like we do with Hoat, Weeper, or Lorch from my examples.    Even Aerys Targaryen killed for pleasure.  He would burn motherfuckers for weird-ass reasons and then use the resulting boner to go rape and mutilate his sister.

 

Like, Jamie executed the mad king, and he threw Bran out the window... but what else did he do that makes you think he killed Aerys out of naked desire to kill him?

[Arthur Peres]

7 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

Jamie's killing of Aerys is a self-redemptive action, because the action resulted in an instantaneous and permanent saving of thousands of lives.  There is no further justification needed.

 

There is nothing about redemption in that act... He saved no one by killing Aerys. He kept the wildfire plot a secret and never told anyone. Rosart already was dead and Tywin already had control over the city and the Red Keep. Aerys murder avoided nothing.

13 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

My point in bringing up the other characters is that at least one of them was a anointed knight, who had sworn vows not to do teethings they did. Each of the three from different cultures with different notions of honor did things that no one would consider honorable, whereas Jamie did none of those things.  This is in general support of the grayness of characters and the vague and poorly implemented system of vows and conceptions of honor.

Again, other character being awful and breaking their vows, does not justify Jaime. Jaime is not some poor boy that was pushed into a cynical world that broke him... this is Bran. Jaime from the get go intended to break his vows, the reason he joined the KG was not because he wanted to serve the realm, or the king, he just wanted to bang his sister.

16 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

So let us recap:

Reasons why Jamie Might Have Killed Aerys Targaryen:

- Save innocent lives in King's Landing from wildfire (this counts as part of knight's oath)

He didn't care about any of those people, as it shows in his POV and in his negligence to inform, Robert or anyone else about the Wildfire plot.

 

19 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

Save rebel army from wildfire (counts as implicit family oath)

- Save himself from wildfire (self defense)

This was acomplished by Killing Rosart, and even this death could be easily avoided if Jaime took his time to just imobilize the weakling alchmist. Aerys murder did neither.

21 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

- Execute a former king who was a serial rapist (yep, knight's oath)

And Jaime stood by and did nothing over these rapes when they happen...

24 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

- Save the kingdom from further way by removing the deposed king of the former regime from the political equation

He did not. Robert already secured his regime after the Trident. 

25 minutes ago, Reekazoid said:

- for the lulz

This is the real reason... No diferent from a domestic cat killing a bird, just because it could.

[Ring3r]

Every faction in this story has done awful things, either recently, as in the case of most, or in the past, as in the case of the Starks.

That said....I think the biggest mistake that Aegon the Conqueror ever made was adopting the Faith of the Seven.  I know it was a political move to make his family more palatable to the masses, but imagine how differently things could have played out if Daenys the Dreamer's prophetic dreams had been made public and the Targs based their authority on that?  All of Westeros knows of the Long Night.  It could have been an incredibly powerful political tool, to make those things public.  Instead, all copies of her journal of dreams were ordered destroyed.....

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

6 hours ago, Ring3r said:

Every faction in this story has done awful things, either recently, as in the case of most, or in the past, as in the case of the Starks.

That said....I think the biggest mistake that Aegon the Conqueror ever made was adopting the Faith of the Seven.  I know it was a political move to make his family more palatable to the masses, but imagine how differently things could have played out if Daenys the Dreamer's prophetic dreams had been made public and the Targs based their authority on that?  All of Westeros knows of the Long Night.  It could have been an incredibly powerful political tool, to make those things public.  Instead, all copies of her journal of dreams were ordered destroyed.....

Prophecies and mystical stuff are very hardly stuff to build and solidify your rule on, as many people wouldn't believe it and that the number of believers would inevitably decrease over time, and that prophecies are very unclear and subject to many interpretations possible, and that the original content should be modified and lost over time too. 

Plus history, myths and legends, and ASOIAF itself have shown many times that people don't act and react smartly to prophecies, and that they do something catastrophic when trying to counter or fullfil the prophecies nearly every time.

And the Targaryens sure did many catastrophic decisions upon trying to fullfil prophecies, Rhaegar's actions to fullfil the Song of Ice and Fire and the Prince that was promised ones being the best examples.

[Craving Peaches]

6 hours ago, Ring3r said:

That said....I think the biggest mistake that Aegon the Conqueror ever made was adopting the Faith of the Seven. 

I think he had to make some concessions like that. Otherwise, to the Lords and Smallfolk, he would be a foreigner with a foreign culture and a foreign faith, coming to impose his Heathenry upon the good people of Westeros etc. It would probably discourage them from surrendering as easily and the Faith Militant would have more support. Adopting the Faith helped Aegon to be seen as a legitimate ruler more quickly.

 

[StarkTullies]

18 hours ago, Arthur Peres said:

Readers need to stop pretending that Jaime was a hero when he killed Aerys.

Aerys was awful and I don't hold that death against Jaime, but stop pretending that he did because "it was the right thing to do". Jaime never told anybody about the plan to blow up the city and also took no action against that later.

He already killed Rossart and stopped the imediatly explosion, Tywin already had the control over the city, Aerys fate already was sealed as after the deed Jaime was caught red handed by two of Tywin's bannerman.

Jaime did not kill Aerys because he needed or because it was right, he did it because he wanted it.

The whole talk about too many oaths is just a weak excuse in the case of Jaime, he never cared about the oaths in the first place. He made a celibate oath just to keep banging his sister...

I agree with some of your points.  I definitely don't think Jaime was a hero, but he did the right thing.  He "wanted it", but partially for the right reasons.

Jaime's nasty exterior statements aside, we see his inner thoughts, and we know that Jaime was legitimately upset about the execution of the Starks, and Aerys beating and raping his sister.  He "went away inside" to cope.  Jaime is a complex character, sometimes seeming with more bad than good at times, but he is not all bad.

I agree about Jaime having no intention to keep his oaths (at least about celibacy).  Jaime's defense about breaking one oath to keep another are his words from his defensive exterior though, not his true thoughts.  Killing Aerys wasn't about oaths or breaking oaths.  He had many reasons for killing him, but saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people was certainly one of them.

As for why he never told anyone about the wildfire plot... the real  reason is because Jaime's character is a victim of George Martin's "gardener" writing approach.  I'm fairly certain that the wildfire plot was not originally part of the story when AGOT was first written, so that's why no one knew.  But ignoring the "real" reason why Jaime never told anyone, I agree: Jaime was an idiot to keep it a secret if he cared about what people thought about his honor, which obviously he did.  And it would have certainly made the Targaryen overthrow and naming his sister as the new queen much more legitimate.  More importantly, there is wildfire all over the city that needs to be dealt with.  So there is no logical reason why Jaime kept it a secret.

[Daenerysthegreat]

4 hours ago, StarkTullies said:

As for why he never told anyone about the wildfire plot... the real  reason is because Jaime's character is a victim of George Martin's "gardener" writing approach.  I'm fairly certain that the wildfire plot was not originally part of the story when AGOT was first written, so that's why no one knew. 

Absolutely true, I don’t get why Tyrion, or Cersei even Addam Marband(The guy was Jaime’s right hand) doesn’t know about it.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Daenerysthegreat said:

Absolutely true, I don’t get why Tyrion, or Cersei even Addam Marband(The guy was Jaime’s right hand) doesn’t know about it.

He's quite full of himself as well, so you'd think Jaime would want everyone to know that he saved the entirety of the city...

[Ring3r]

12 hours ago, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

Prophecies and mystical stuff are very hardly stuff to build and solidify your rule on, as many people wouldn't believe it and that the number of believers would inevitably decrease over time, and that prophecies are very unclear and subject to many interpretations possible, and that the original content should be modified and lost over time too. 

Plus history, myths and legends, and ASOIAF itself have shown many times that people don't act and react smartly to prophecies, and that they do something catastrophic when trying to counter or fullfil the prophecies nearly every time.

And the Targaryens sure did many catastrophic decisions upon trying to fullfil prophecies, Rhaegar's actions to fullfil the Song of Ice and Fire and the Prince that was promised ones being the best examples.

Nearly every ancient dynasty in our own world used "chosen by god" or "physical embodiment of the gods" or prophecy as a reason to rule, so the whole mystical angle seemed to have worked pretty well back then.

I have a theory that the reason things went so sideways for the Targs is that they lost the knowledge of why they came to Westeros in the first place, probably due to a break in the passing down of said prophecy during or immediately after the Dance.  Basically all the awful things that happened to the Targs after that were the result of them trying to regain what they had lost.

I think if they'd not made it a secret to begin with, it wouldn't have been lost.  Maybe not base their rule on it but don't make it a secret that only a few in the family know.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

33 minutes ago, Ring3r said:

Nearly every ancient dynasty in our own world used "chosen by god" or "physical embodiment of the gods" or prophecy as a reason to rule, so the whole mystical angle seemed to have worked pretty well back then.

I have a theory that the reason things went so sideways for the Targs is that they lost the knowledge of why they came to Westeros in the first place, probably due to a break in the passing down of said prophecy during or immediately after the Dance.  Basically all the awful things that happened to the Targs after that were the result of them trying to regain what they had lost.

I think if they'd not made it a secret to begin with, it wouldn't have been lost.  Maybe not base their rule on it but don't make it a secret that only a few in the family know.

For that they used religion and the god(s) of their civilisation or subjects, something in which others believed and trusted, not stuff like an imprecise prophecy which is far from sure that others will believe in and that leads to disaster more often than not (with the Dance and Robert's Rebellion being partially caused by the Targaryens' attempts to fullfil it).

In that the Targaryens did the right thing by adopting the faith, in order to solidify their rule, and give something to believe in for their subjects. 

That's also why Jaehaerys and Septon Barth created that Exceptionalism Doctrine to make the Faith accept them and their incest practice.

The Targaryens adopting the Faith in itself isn't responsible for them losing trace of the prophecy, they had already lost most of their heritage after the Dance and no one could have predicted that one of the Targaryen kings would be a Faith fanatic.