The Best Thing Jaime Could Do

[The Pita]

What if you condemn them for insisting on maintaining an incestuous relationship even though they knew it was illegal and being so incompetent about keeping it a secret that Kevan, Stannis, Tyrion, Varys, Bran, Eddard, Jon Arryn, and God knows who else found out? Seriously, being selfish and evil is one thing, but being dangerously stupid is another. I can forgive Jaime because he's becoming a nicer guy and I like him but the way that Cersei acts makes it seem all the worse to me.

Umm... Bran found out by accident while Tyrion found out by asking Cersei if she did and assuring her that her secret was safe. Jon was told by Stannis, and Ned found out by being told by Jon, in a way. Varys knows everything anyway, and Kevan was with them both since they were children.

But you forgot Littlefinger in your list.

[Daemrion]

Daemirion, you're saying that it's a human reaction to kill a child that caught you doing something you aren't supposed to be doing? Wow. I really hope that you don't have kids.

I call a 'human reaction' that you would sacrifice someone else's child to save your own.

As stated, even when the shit hits the fan, you don't kill kids. It's the pinnacle of selfishness.

But humans are selfish that's why it's a human reaction. Not the right reaction but the human reaction.

[aspasia]

If you're talking about when Arya is presented to Robert about the Mycah/Joff/Nymeria/Lion's Tooth incident, Jaime wasn't there. Ned notes that his only luck is Jaime and Sandor being out on search missions.

Jaime tells Ilyn Payne that Cersei told him, that very night, that she wanted Arya's hand cut off, and then when he took her to bed, kept yelling "I want I want". Jaime says that at the time, he thought she wanted him, but now realizes it probably wasn't. Jaime certainly knew that Cersei's idea of the proper punishment was "the old penalty for striking one of royal blood" as he tells Payne... which Jaime doesn't notice is deranged, since Cersei is available for screwing. He doesn't notice, either, that she has been using him as a method of getting revenge on her husband-- that she screws him primarily in order to provide Robert with horns-- even though she tells him precisely that!

Jaime must have been unbelievably dense to have let his sexual besottedness blind him so long to Cersei's real nature. I don't even think he really ever thought she was a good person so much as never bothered to ask himself the question; you can tell from the very first scene showing them in intimacy that he never listens to a word she says, just tells her to shut up and open up. Obviously he doesn't care what comes out of her mouth, only what goes in.... After all, it is Tyrion's accusation that she is *sexually* false that upsets him enough to take a good look at her character. He is one of those guys who doesn't care what a woman thinks as long as he is getting his rocks off regularly. "the things he does for love"?!? Hardly! More like "The things he does for regular hot incestuous adultery!"

O yea.... persons of both sexes mistake orgasms for love if they are only immature enough....

aspasia

'

[aspasia]

What if you condemn them for insisting on maintaining an incestuous relationship even though they knew it was illegal and being so incompetent about keeping it a secret that Kevan, Stannis, Tyrion, Varys, Bran, Eddard, Jon Arryn, and God knows who else found out?

Someone else already did a nice job tracing the epistemological pathways-- I only want to point out that Jaime didn't want to keep it a secret at all, he wanted to claim Cersei in front of God and everybody. He refrains from acting as her lover publicly only because she insists on it.

ooo.. it's ILLEGAL! Gasp, oh no! So is going down on your spouse, in the state where I was born. so what's yer point? I'll entertain arguments that an incestuous sexual relationship is morally wrong... but not on the basis of its technical illegality. If it's wrong, it's wrong for other reasons, but it sure ain't wrong simply because it's illegal. Do we even know if incest IS technically illegal in Westeros? Of course, adultery with the queen is mentioned as a variety of treason-- but that isn't because Jaime is Cersei's twin brother.

Condemn them for continuing a relationship because it's illegal... (chortle)

<<Seriously, being selfish and evil is one thing, but being dangerously stupid is another.>>

No argument there. Cersei is both. But one thing that she does which I find despicable is maintain her relationship with Jaime privately while pretending otherwise in public-- so she can keep power she only holds as Robert's wife. She doesn't want to be Robert's wife, and to some extent it isn't her fault-- it certainly isn't her idea, and she would have had to break with her father to avoid it-- but she's bent on keeping whatever power she can get out of it, using whatever power she can grasp to hide the truth and make everyone treat her as though she were what she is not. Jaime, on the other hand, is willing to take the consequences of declaring his beliefs and his love, and fighting to keep her.

It's stupid to think you can wield power to force the world to be as you wish it were, but that is Cersei's favorite mistake. She never ceases to think she can MAKE the world do what she wants, MAKE what she wants to believe the truth, if she can just kill everyone who dares suggest otherwise.... Come to think of it, Tywin must have taught her the habit; remember when the Tyrells refuse the offer to marry Cersei to Willas and Tywin tells Tyrion that "It never happened"? But Tywin, not being an idiot, didn't try to deceive himself, as Cersei does. Cersei wants to be able to sell lies to HERSELF, to preserve her OWN ability to continue believing bullshit... and not wanting to know the truth is the heart of stupidity. Every time Cersei congratulates herself for being a lion just like Tywin, and rages because other people don't obey her like they did him, and blames them for contradicting her... she never wonders for an instant if it would be because she's stone ignorant and has never done a single thing to earn anyone's respect?

<<I can forgive Jaime because he's becoming a nicer guy and I like him but the way that Cersei acts makes it seem all the worse to me.>>

Anyone is a nicer person than Cersei. Probably Vargo-the-goat-cutlet was nicer than Cersei. Jaime has shown himself to be a moral agent, at least, he is capable of honest self-evaluation and change based on that evaluation. Cersei hasn't, yet, and I don't know if she can. She is a perfect case of the sociopathic equivalence: "what I want"="The Good". She's furious with Jaime because he isn't supposed to be a separate person, he is supposed to be her arm, the male appendage whose job is to MAKE everyone do what she wants. There is literally no one in the universe who Cersei would listen to if they said "you're wrong". Anyone, everyone, who disagrees with her is wrong, evil, broken; she looks up to no one, respects no one, and loves no one. Not even her children. She thinks she loves Joff, but clearly has no clue whatsoever as to who he is, and I am tempted to say she thinks she loves him because she believes he is serving her purpose so well. He's supposed to be the conduit through which she gains sole rulership of the Seven Kingdoms, so she sees his viciousness as "strength" and overlooks his abusing her younger offspring. She humiliates Tommen and then "fondly" muses on how she will never let anything hurt him-- it's crystal clear to me that the real content of her maternal "love" amounts to "i'll never allow anyone to take away my power as Queen Regent".

Ugh, Cersei appalls me so deeply Jaime looks fabulous by comparison.. but "better then Cersei" don't make anyone decent (grin). Jaime's got problems, but Cersei is a raving lunatic, on a moral par with serial killers, so selfish she's insane.

[shadowbinding shoe]

ooo.. it's ILLEGAL! Gasp, oh no! So is going down on your spouse, in the state where I was born. so what's yer point? I'll entertain arguments that an incestuous sexual relationship is morally wrong... but not on the basis of its technical illegality. If it's wrong, it's wrong for other reasons, but it sure ain't wrong simply because it's illegal. Do we even know if incest IS technically illegal in Westeros? Of course, adultery with the queen is mentioned as a variety of treason-- but that isn't because Jaime is Cersei's twin brother.

Condemn them for continuing a relationship because it's illegal... (chortle)

I never cared for the legalities of the issue but I thought the relationship between Cercei and Jaime portrayed very well the dangers and depravities an incerstuous relationship can create. A non-physical type of love is submerged under the physical one so that in the end a non sexual type of love in a relationship draws a blank for them. They know how to express feeling physically and forget the rest. Also it is too close. As we see with Jaime (the weaker partner in the relationship) his independant will is blotted by his sisters' demands. They only have each other for possible sexual partners and so remain childish and close to the adult world in such matters. The list goes on. In theory incestuous relationships can work (perfect romantic love from romance novells) but the tendency is that they don't.

[The Pita]

People must realise that Cersei, as stupid as she may be, is the smarter of the two. As I've said before, Jaime is not smart.

He was just... a slave eariler. Now he's finding his integrity, his honesty, and, hardest of all, the will to look back and say "I was a shit!"

[Piper]

Jaime tells Ilyn Payne that Cersei told him, that very night . . . '

Ah, duly noted, I stand corrected. *doffs hat*

[Kalbear]

But humans are selfish that's why it's a human reaction. Not the right reaction but the human reaction.

Humans are selfish, vile, cruel, despicable, brutal, and terrible. Yes, it is a human reaction in the sense that humans do it - but as Jaime would be happy to tell you, not every man is willing to fuck his sister in his enemy's house and then attempt to kill a child. There aren't many men like Jaime.

He's human. Him being human in no way makes him good nor does it make his reaction particularly understandable or sympathizable. He is in every way a monster.

[Mad Monkey]

"the things he does for love"?!? Hardly! More like "The things he does for regular hot incestuous adultery!"

Quoted for truth.

Condemn them for continuing a relationship because it's illegal... (chortle)

What's wrong with condemning it? It's illegal; they both swore vows against doing so, and in Westerosi culture they are supposed to value vows highly; indeed, seeing how often the two of them go on about their honor and their lion-hood and how everyone should respect them despite them not exhibiting any signs of deserving such respect, you'd think that Jaime and Cersei would have been struggling hard to be moral pillars for the entire nation.

It's doubly worse because both of them know that if they are caught it will inevitably lead to war; that's been the long-running justification for Bran's defenestration, yet the larger issue is that Jaime and Cersei insisted on having sex in relatively public places and not realizing how stupid and thoughtless their actions are. Not only is it illegal, it is also stupid and evil (two things that tend to go together when it comes to things like this).

It's stupid to think you can wield power to force the world to be as you wish it were, but that is Cersei's favorite mistake. She never ceases to think she can MAKE the world do what she wants, MAKE what she wants to believe the truth, if she can just kill everyone who dares suggest otherwise....

You're absolutely right here, and I feel that it is this mindset that characterizes her entire tenure in AFFC. She seems to think that her Crown (Tommen's Crown, actually!) is a magic wand that makes all of her problems go away and even as she's being locked into a cell by a bunch of nuns

she still doesn't realize her mistake. The best thing Jaime can do for her now is to just let her go free or die as she may.

People must realise that Cersei, as stupid as she may be, is the smarter of the two. As I've said before, Jaime is not smart.

He was just... a slave eariler. Now he's finding his integrity, his honesty, and, hardest of all, the will to look back and say "I was a shit!"

They are the same. Jaime makes decisions based on impulse and so does Cersei. She burns down the Tower of the Hand on a whim, sets Ser Balman against Bronn on a whim, and re-arms the Militant Faith on a whim. The main difference is that Jaime is slowly starting to put together why his own mistakes were in fact mistakes while Cersei is still blaming everyone else for her own stupidity.

He's human. Him being human in no way makes him good nor does it make his reaction particularly understandable or sympathizable. He is in every way a monster.

Exactly. Part of having 'honor' is resisting the first wild human impulse and doing what is right. Jaime at the time wanted to be respected and admired for his honor but didn't want to take the culturally-required steps to earn it. Sometimes, this can be hard to do (look what it did to Brienne and Lord Stark!) but that's why honor is so rare.

[aspasia]

.

What's wrong with condemning it? It's illegal; they both swore vows against doing so, and in Westerosi culture they are supposed to value vows highly; indeed, seeing how often the two of them go on about their honor and their lion-hood and how everyone should respect them despite them not exhibiting any signs of deserving such respect, you'd think that Jaime and Cersei would have been struggling hard to be moral pillars for the entire nation.

There are significant differences between Cersei and Jaime on this issue of honor, partially due to the fact that Jaime broke a vow extremely publicly and has been publicly branded an oathbreaker forevermore: "I'll be the Kingslayer till I die."

Cersei simply has no sense of honor at all; her idea of honor is something along the lines of "I am important and powerful cause of who my daddy is and you'll bow to me and flatter and obey me or I'll try to have you killed and ifit doesn't work out like I want, I'll have someone standing next to you killed just to prove I can kill SOMEBODY!" The only version of anything even vaguely resembling a moral ideal in her mental universe seems to be "lion-ness" which she constantly attributes to her father and to herself because he is her father and Queen (Regent). It's a crappy excuse for an ideal, including as it does few moral aspects and many political ones-- "lions" have steel in the voices, people are afraid of them and do what lions order. The scariest bit is Cersei's reminiscing that Daddy Lion could look at you and make you know how worthless you really were.. and now she foolishly hopes that SHE will be the New Lion who makes everyone else feel like garbage. Classic abuse victim psychology: since her universe contains only two kinds of people, abusers and victims, she thinks she can only avoid being victimized by becoming a tormentor, and prove what a lion she is by eating all the lambs she can catch. Daddy won't make me feel worthless anymore, cause now Ill be making others feel like garbage! Wouldn't he be proud!

Actually, no, cause Daddy Lion doesn't give a damn about you anyway. He wants Jaime to follow him, but Cersei's a girl and can never, as far as Tywin is concerned, by any sort of lion. But he does see what an idiot you are.

Jaime has moral ideals; they're instantiated by the Kingsguard of his youth and the tradition of knightly chivalry. So he can meansure himself against those ideals and feel lousy that he fails so badly to measure up, But the problem is that the big huge thing everyone loathes Jaime for wasn't the simple matter everyone takes it to have been. Far from it. Yes, he swore to guard Aerys. Okay. But one, he has since learned Aerys is a monster and therefore he is ashamed of guarding him, especially while he savages his queen in the bedroom. They are standing outside the door listening while Aerys chews his sister-wife's breasts just like Biter does to his victims, remember, and Jaime asks "Aren't we sworn to guard her, too?" and gets "Yes, but not from him." So his oath to Aerys is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to his oath as a knight to protect the weak. He also has seen Aerys and his pet pyromancers preparing to burn King's Landing to cinders, and knows unless someone stops them, they'll do it. Again, his oath to Aerys comes into direct contradiction to another moral duty (to prevent wanton mass murder). As if that wasn't enough, Aerys orders Jaime to bring him Tywin's head if he isn't a traitor. This was the camel's-back-breaker. Patricide is a sin, a gross dereliction of the moral duties one holds to one's parents, and Aerys has just ordered Jaime to murder his own father.

Under all that weight of contradiction, it's just not surprising.. and not particularly blameworthy.. for Jaime to have split the way he did, and decide that turning on Aerys was the least evil of his options and that it was less dishonorable than his other available choices. But the fact that just about everyone considers it proof that Jaime has no honor, and that he lives with having "shit for honor" for years, makes his relationship with his own honor very problematic. He is no moral virgin like Eddard Stark. He does want to be a good knight, worthy of his predecessors in the Kingsguard, and I don't see that he makes only the easiest of choices in pursuit of his ideals. But he is also very aware of the differences between being honorable, being seen/thought honorable, etcetera; he also sees that "clean hands" don't necessarily mean a man has done the best he could have done. It depends on what the costs of keeping those hands clean has been. Should Ned Stark have insisted on telling only the truth to keep his honor spotless, knowing the price was Sansa's head? No. No more than he ought to have denied Lyanna whatever promise she extracted from him, in order to avoid being thought to have sired a bastard. SO Jaime knows that he can't be aiming at honor as "clean hands" or "perfect record of unbroken vows"-- and that those aren't the real heart of honor anyway-- but he isn't sure just what it is, or how to pursue it. He seems to be going for something like doing the best he can with the situations at hand and opportunities he can spot: instead of shrugging off his promises to Catelyn and thinking "oh well, they were gone before I got here, not my fault" he sends Brienne to salvage what she can, and yanks Edmure down off the idiotic Freys' gibbet and sends him back to Rivverrun. I am very eager to see how Martin carries on with Jaime's quest for redemption and what he eventually discovers about the nature of honor.

[The Pita]

He's human. Him being human in no way makes him good nor does it make his reaction particularly understandable or sympathizable. He is in every way a monster.

Let's compare Jaime to someone you'll find less... a monster. Petyr Baelish

On Love:

Jaime's had one love in his life, his sister, who he is disconnecting from. However, he's always been loyal to her, and even though he has a secret he would love to tell, he won't because it will harm her.

Petyr's had one love in his life, and because she chose someone else, he's trying to court her daughter, he fucked her sister and threw her out the window because "she might reveal something harmful". Not to mention that a man with a whorehouse probably has much experience.

On Honor:

Jaime tends to think it's a horse, but he is trying to get the version of it that does not come in a horse.

Petyr mocks it.

On Family:

Jaime's family connections are bad, although they used to be great. His father disowned him just before he died, his brother intends to kill him for a slight 10 years ago, and his sister is Cersei. 'nuff said.

Petyr mocks everything his family stood for. They are all dead.

On Truth:

Jaime (I think) has almost never told a lie, except about Cersei and him.

Petyr's lying is like a bear's shitting in the woods.

On Murder:

Jaime has one commited, with intent for more

Petyr has one shown, with obvious capability and intent for more.

[Starkess]

So proving Petyr is a monster makes Jaime less of a monster? It's possible for more than one person to be monstrous in this series, and I think Jaime and Petyr both qualify.

[Enguerrand]

Well i think this Jaime-Cersie dictonomy is kind of problematic. Pre AFFC they seem to be extremely important for each other, only the fact that Cersie continues such a dangerous affair speak volumes. Cersie tells Eddard that with Jaime she feels WHOLE. And the lack of his presence have a profound impact on her psyche, she becomes more bitchy, rage about way to rescue him, search for lovers that are reflections of Jaime. Etc. In AFFC Cersie turns in into a caricature, loose every redeeming feature and doesn’t seem to care one whit about her emotional link to Jaime even though she should need him more then ever. So when people take the piss out of her I kind of get mad at GRRM. She really was an complex character once.

Yes, he swore to guard Aerys. Okay. But one, he has since learned Aerys is a monster and therefore he is ashamed of guarding him, especially while he savages his queen in the bedroom. They are standing outside the door listening while Aerys chews his sister-wife's breasts just like Biter does to his victims, remember, and Jaime asks "Aren't we sworn to guard her, too?" and gets "Yes, but not from him." So his oath to Aerys is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to his oath as a knight to protect the weak.

It’s strange though that Jaime is the only person that perceive this as a DIRECT CONTRADICTION to his knightly vows. For the rest of the kingsguard it’s not an issue. Are you saying that Jaime is the only perfect knight in Westeros?

As if that wasn't enough, Aerys orders Jaime to bring him Tywin's head if he isn't a traitor. This was the camel's-back-breaker. Patricide is a sin, a gross dereliction of the moral duties one holds to one's parents, and Aerys has just ordered Jaime to murder his own father.

Aerys ordered Jaime to kill a traitor in arms. No one in Westeros has claimed this as an exonerating circumstance, most likely because they don’t find it one. Jaime himself takes Balon Swann to task for what would happened if he would face his brother in battle, and approves when Balon swear that he will stay true to the king and not follow Jaime’s example.

I don't see that he makes only the easiest of choices in pursuit of his ideals.

I do. Whenever his own skin is on the line he find a pretext to bestir himself.

Should Ned Stark have insisted on telling only the truth to keep his honor spotless, knowing the price was Sansa's head? No.

Yes, he betrayed his king and his duties as hand and his responsibilities to the people of Westeros to save his daughters life. He was ready to sacrifice not only his own honor but that of his bannemen as well and swear them to an usurper. While we can feel sympathy for him, it’s clear that he made the dishonourable and selfish choice.

[Kalbear]

You're right, Pita. I consider Petyr to be even more of a bastard than Jaime. Since your view is that I'd feel Littlefinger is less of a monster - and that's actually totally wrong - I'm not really sure what your point is. Though I would add that most of what Littlefinger has done on that list hasn't actually been all that bad. Oooh, owned a whorehouse? You're comparing owning a legal establishment with questionable moral character to throwing a kid out a window? Nice!

Jaime throws kids out of windows. How is this a debate? He throws kids out of windows. He can do it for love or because he was panicked or because he wanted to teach Bran how to fly, it doesn't matter - he throws kids out of windows. And any amount of understanding of why he does it does not make it any less of a heinous act. This is called idiot compassion - it's being compassionate for someone because they're a sad wubbie and you understand how bad they've had it or whatever.

It doesn't matter, because he throws kids out windows.

I call a 'human reaction' that you would sacrifice someone else's child to save your own.

Right - because Jaime did it to save those useless squirts in a cunt. He cares so much about his kids, after all. No, he did it to protect his and Cersei's skin. If you would willingly sacrifice a child to save your own skin, again...I hope you don't have kids.

[Benjen Snow]

It doesn't matter, because he throws kids out windows.

This is boiled down to pure form and can't be rationalized away. That being said, at least Jaime is trying to better himself and not just stay a monster. The argument kind of reminds me of the Tony Soprano argument people try to excuse his being a sociopath because they like him. Jaime, however, is now on a better road then Tony or his old self. I pray GRRM gives us a Bran/Jaime face to face moment. For any degree of real redemption there must be not a reconciliation but at least a facing up to that moment.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Well i think this Jaime-Cersie dictonomy is kind of problematic. Pre AFFC they seem to be extremely important for each other, only the fact that Cersie continues such a dangerous affair speak volumes. Cersie tells Eddard that with Jaime she feels WHOLE. And the lack of his presence have a profound impact on her psyche, she becomes more bitchy, rage about way to rescue him, search for lovers that are reflections of Jaime. Etc. In AFFC Cersie turns in into a caricature, loose every redeeming feature and doesn’t seem to care one whit about her emotional link to Jaime even though she should need him more then ever.

The relationship changed in AFFC, but I don't see that that aspect has been lost. She still feels the importance of her emotional link to Jaime, but the relationship doesn't work any more because Jaime has changed so much in the year and change that he'd been gone, and his priorities are different now. She's still casting about looking for 'Jaime' in other people (this is the point of the scene where she has sex with Taena, for ex.), because even Jaime isn't 'Jaime' for her any more.

It’s strange though that Jaime is the only person that perceive this as a DIRECT CONTRADICTION to his knightly vows. For the rest of the kingsguard it’s not an issue. Are you saying that Jaime is the only perfect knight in Westeros?

Jaime was the newest member of the Kingsguard, and the youngest and quite probably the most naive. By the time he got there, his brothers had already made whatever justifications they needed to make. I don't see how that makes their position right (as opposed to less complicated).

[aspasia]

Yes, he betrayed his king and his duties as hand and his responsibilities to the people of Westeros to save his daughters life. He was ready to sacrifice not only his own honor but that of his bannemen as well and swear them to an usurper. While we can feel sympathy for him, it’s clear that he made the dishonourable and selfish choice.

I don't think that is at all clear. The issues are not so clear-cut as you present them. When Ned Stark is faced with this decision, Robert is dead and he is no longer Hand. Therefore he cannot be in dereliction of any duties as the Hand of the King. His choice is over whether to lie in public and renounce the truth he had previously intended to publicize-- Joffrey's true parentage. It is a sacrifice of his honor to tell that lie, yes. But it can't be so easily condemned as morally wrong.

Betrayal of his bannermen to swear them to an usurper? You mean, *again*? Consider that Stark has already sworn himself and his bannermen to one usurper-- Robert Baratheon. What overwhelming moral force is there in "rightful heirship" that is worth Sansa's life? So, I question your assumption that there is some huge moral weight to technical or legal heirship; whether Joffrey is "an usurper" is considerably less important, to my mind, than the fact that he is a monster and will be a disastrous king. Joffrey is in fact Robert's legal heir, acknowledged by him as his son, although that would have been changed had the bastardy been proven, leaving Stannis as the heir.

Stark has to know, lying in the black cells, that no choice he makes is going to result in Joffrey's being proven a bastard and his status as heir revoked. The chance for that outcome died with Robert. How would they prove it, anyway? From the fact that all Robert's bastards are black-haired? They don't have blood tests for paternity. Cersei can shrug and say of course her children are blonde, they're half Lannister, and Lannisters have been blonde for centuries. So what if the bastards look like Robert? People with the chance to see enough of Robert's bastards might *recognize* their strong resemblances, causing them to wonder why Cersei's lack the Baratheon hair or features, and then *know* oh, shit, they aren't his... But a few people knowing a thing to be true isn't the same as legal proof.

Continuing to assert the truth, for Stark, will make not a jot of difference to the outcome. The issue is his honor; whether he will participate in a lie, lend his own support to a course of events that are going to happen no matter what he does. Joffrey has already been crowned, there's no way to prove he should not have been, and there is nothing Stark can do about it; he can say "No, I won't lie" and die (along with his family) or he can lie to save their lives and perhaps his own. The issue really does boil down to the moral value of clean hands. Is it worth Sansa's life for Stark to keep his hands clean? I still say, no. It is the right thing to do for Ned Stark to lie like a rug at this point, save his own life and his children's, get himself to the Wall and then see what his options are to make things right or at least better.

It would have been the SELFISH choice for him to cling to his own clean hands, his moral virginity, and say "I won't tell a lie, nah nah nah, no matter how many of my children's heads you throw in my cell!" I remember an artist friend once who stayed briefly with me in Manhattan during graduate school. He had just read _Sophie's Choice_ and was upset by the actions of the mother in the story. A mother of two small children is in a concentration camp, and a sadistic Nazi offers her a choice; she can choose one of her children to live, and the other will die. If she refuses, both will die. My artist friend insisted her moral duty was to refuse! She had soiled herself by "playing his game" and should have said "I won't choose, I won't let you compel me, you can't make me choose, it would be wrong to choose one child over the other and I won't let you make me do such a horrible thing!" In other words.. she could have kept her hands clean, she could have refused to play his vicious game. It didn't seem to bother my friend that the COST of those clean hands was a child's life. I was never sure, after that day, whether I could trust that particular friend to tell right from wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are LOTS of clear-cut moral choices, lots of situations where one's duty is clear and the only difficulty is doing it. But Stark's choice in that cell isn't as simple as you would have it. Yes, he dishonored himself; but that doesn't mean, necessarily, that he should have chosen otherwise. He made the dishonorable, but UNSELFISH, choice when he damaged his honor to save his daughter's life.

aspasia

[aspasia]

Aerys ordered Jaime to kill a traitor in arms. No one in Westeros has claimed this as an exonerating circumstance, most likely because they don’t find it one.

Or because they don't know about it. Jaime has always refused to explain any of the exonerating circumstances, because he is too arrogant to want to place himself in the position of having to justify himself. Like Cersei he prefer to view himself as above anyone's condemnation: "By what right does the wolf judge the lion?" He is also somewhat bitter that no one has ever asked any of the questions, such as "who killed Rossart?" which would lead to any of the mitigating circumstances coming to light. No one is going around claiming ANY exonerating circumstances for Jaime, because they already have him pegged as the evil oathbreaker, scapegoat of Robert's Rebellion. Robert himself is one of the only people who recognizes that Jaime is to some extent a moral scapegoat, public hatred raining on his too-blond too-fortunate too-arrogant head that might otherwise have fallen on Robert himself. The spectacle of the Kingslayer, the famous gorgeous knight falling into dishonor with King Aerys' blood on his blade, distracts a lot of attention from Robert's killing of Rheagar; if not for the public's entrancement with Jaime's villainy, they might have remembered that Rheagar was rather well-loved and would have been a much better king than his father.

I recall no evidence anywhere that anyone else knows about Aerys' order to Jaime to bring him his father's head. And despite your contention that Tywin was just a traitor in arms and therefore there was no moral conflict, kinslaying IS thought of as a major moral crime in Westeros. Look at the chorus of horrified denunciations of Tyrion for patricide. Even though people tend to condemn Tyrion regardless of the real moral valence of his actions, there are plenty of other references to the special evil of kinslaying. However, I wasn't claiming Jaime's killing of Aerys to be a virtuous act-- just that he was correct that the contradictory duties that bound him at the time made it impossible for him not to fail some of them. His Kingsguard's oath to Aerys was not the only oath in play, or the only morally weighty consideration, or the only duty he owed.

aspasia

[Kalbear]

Ya know, Jaime didn't have to do either choice. He didn't have to kill Aerys, and he didn't have to kill Tywin. Really, he didn't have to even _kill_ Aerys; tieing him up and waiting for his dad or Ned or whomever to show up would have fulfilled his vows to some degree, and he would have been able to say to KL that he saved them all from that plot.

It's not a simple binary choice. Jaime had a lot of options.

[Enguerrand]

When Ned Stark is faced with this decision, Robert is dead and he is no longer Hand.

Any evidence that support this? I suppose his ascendance to regent could rescind the hand ship, but I know of no mentioning that the office become vacant at the time of the king’s death. Even if he wasn’t Hand he was Robert’s appointed regent, same thing.

Betrayal of his bannermen to swear them to an usurper? You mean, *again*? Consider that Stark has already sworn himself and his bannermen to one usurper-- Robert Baratheon.

Yes again, the situation is also really different because while Robert might have been an usurper, Joffery is an impostor with no claim the Iron throne whatsoever by endorsing him a s Robert’s son he limits his bannermen’s option to make a choice.

Stark has to know, lying in the black cells, that no choice he makes is going to result in Joffrey's being proven a bastard and his status as heir revoked.

Why should he know that? At the beginning of the war of the five kings only the Lannister was in support of Joffery. And anyway adverse cirmumstances doesn’t stop men of honour from doing their duty. Several of Stannis bannermen rather died then swore fealty to Joffery. Courtney Penrose faced Stannis overwhelming might without fail because he saw it as his duty.

Roderick Casell was prepared to see his daughter hanged rather then abort his siege of Winterfell and his duty to his liege lord. These are men not simply talks about honour like Ned Stark but walks the walk.

How would they prove it, anyway? From the fact that all Robert's bastards are black-haired? They don't have blood tests for paternity. Cersei can shrug and say of course her children are blonde, they're half Lannister, and Lannisters have been blonde for centuries. So what if the bastards look like Robert?

Very simple, because Eddard Stark Robert’s regent, arbiter of the king’s justice ruled Joffery, a bastard and usurper and intended to bring war to his supporters. That was the verdict of the high court of Westeros.

It would have been the SELFISH choice for him to cling to his own clean hands, his moral virginity, and say "I won't tell a lie, nah nah nah, no matter how many of my children's heads you throw in my cell!"

Well I disagree, he chose the well being of his own family over that of his duties to the king, the gods, and the people he had sworn to protect. Compare to Davos, Penrose Casell et al, he was a moral dwarf. Besides I find the threat to kill Sansa off-hand, that was the king’s fiancée and an extremely valuable resource in her own right , very unbelievable.