Brienne's last word

[Happy Ent]

I mean, if giving someone an oath means complete and utter obedience then a lord can demand oathee to jump off a cliff. Or launch himself naked from a trebuchet while straddling a barrel of green fire and singing "Hairy bear" for as long as possible.... or squawk like a chicken... or...

Yes, an oath means complete and utter obedience. That‘s the point.

And Brienne is asked to do none of silly things you list. She’s asked to kill the enemy number 1 or 2 or her liege. That’s exactly what knights are for. She entered Catelyn’s services knowing full well that she might do exactly what Catelyn is asking of her right now. She is not being conned, her oath is not being used for anything else than it was meant for.

[Nukelavee]

avenging arya has a point - Catlitch isn't living up to the other side of the oath.

another point, dead or not, is Stoneheart REALLY Cat, and therefore, is any oath valid at that point.

but, Ent, asking Brienne to kill Jaimie is pretty much the same thing as asking her to take a catapult ride - it's likely going to get her killed. it might not be a con, but it is exploiting the oath.

the thing about oaths, in this kind of setting, particularly oath's of fealty, is that their is responsibility and obligation that runs both up and down..Cat is forsaking her obligations.

to me -it's simple - Brienne's obligation was to keep jaimie safe, to exchange for Sansa, and to get Sansa to safety.

by hanging her, Cat is actually forcing her to not complete her obligation, and then using her own actions to force Brienne to change the terms of the promise itself.

no question in my mind - Cat is evil, and the sooner somebody puts her down, the better off Westeros is.

[ríomhaire]

Brienne's word is Gendry. I'm posting it just so that on the very, very off chance I'm right I can be all "I told you guys so."

[Targaryen loyalist]

Brienne's word is Gendry. I'm posting it just so that on the very, very off chance I'm right I can be all "I told you guys so."

IIRC Brienne doesn't know of Gendry's true parentage. As a matter of fact, very few living people remain with this knowledge.

[Happy Ent]

to me -it's simple - Brienne's obligation was to keep jaimie safe, to exchange for Sansa, and to get Sansa to safety.

by hanging her, Cat is actually forcing her to not complete her obligation, and then using her own actions to force Brienne to change the terms of the promise itself.

This seems to be a popular misreading.

Brienne swears fealty to Catelyn on her way with Catelyn to Riverrun. That’s the oath.

The mission to bring Jaime to Kings Landing is just a mission. It is not he solemn pledge of unconditional allegiance. Brienne is bound by her oath of allegiance, and still so bound. She is no longer on a mission to get Jaime to Kings Landing. That mission is over with. For a while she has now been following, and quite uselessly, a mission given to her by the sworn enemy Jaime Lannister of her liege Catelyn Stark.

No amount of rhetoric can transform that situation into its perversion: that the promise to Jaime (to find Sansa) is something that Brienne should feel overrides her oath to Catelyn.

[ríomhaire]

IIRC Brienne doesn't know of Gendry's true parentage. As a matter of fact, very few living people remain with this knowledge.

She does realise who he is. She mistakes him briefly for Renly and then realises he looks more like Robert and then figures it out.

[XtremeOne1]

I think her words are "sword". She'll go after Jaime.

As for those who say Cat is "in the wrong" in sending Brienne to kill Jaime....remember the last words she heard were "Jaime Lannister says hello" as her son get stabbed in the back, through the heart, right in front of her eyes. She has ever right to want Jaime dead. To her, he is as much as fault for her son's death as the Frey's. Plus he also tried to kill her OTHER son.

[Nukelavee]

misreading? nay, sirrah, that would be you misreading what you quoted.

i didn't use the word oath there, i said obligation. they aren't the same thing. admittedly, the use of the word promise at the end might muddy things a bit for you, but, yeah, you misread that statement.

plus, well, an oath of fealty usually doesn't extend past the liege's death, in anything i've read at most, it may pass to the heir. when Jaimie gave her the sword, and sent her out... she knew Cat was dead. she is no longer bound at all.

i'd hardly call her search useless, either, it had a use -find and protect Sansa. That is was unsuccessful, and possibly futile, is a seperate matter.

i'm not even certain you can accurately say Jaimie is a sworn enemy- i don't recall him swearing Cat was his enemy.

so, to paraphrase you, ent, no amount of rhetoric can make Brienne's choice a perversion of an oath no longer valid.

[Nukelavee]

hiver - yeah, she is evil. sorry if that seems simple to you, but, well, she is. and please, don't try to play the "she's avenging her losses" card. she's currently hanging 3 innocent people, without any sort of trial worth the name. nothing about that scene and her treatment of Brienne, nor the way she tries to extort agreement from her, has the faintest whiff of good about it.

she couldn't be a more nasty creature if beric had dumped her in the per sematary.

storywise, i enjoy the thought of her killing frey's, but do you think she would shirk at killing children, women, and bystanders (who happen to have the Frey name, or be in thier employ) as she exterminates she and Robb's killers?

i don't.

[Mickey2093]

The problem I see with referring to Brienne's oath and whether or not she should take the order to kill jaime is this -

she was called oathbreaker before she refused to go kill jaime. the choice she was given was so that she could redeem herself - her refusal wasn't the origin of the title oathbreaker. uncat hasn't bothered to ascertain the status of the mission, either. she doesn't know what brienne has been doing all this time, and apparently isn't interested. all she cares about is killing, vengeance...

she was proclaimed guilty before any information was known. she was never given the chance to actually answer questions, or explain anything. she was interrupted by accusations and forced to choices before any opportunity to set the record straight, and this was done before she was even recovered enough from the fight at the inn to be able to answer coherently.

no - uncat is most assuredly not catelyn, and even if she was, catelyn was not particularly honorable nor concerned with anything other than herself (and her and the childrens status/opportunities). Ned told her he belonged in the north, that he would refuse, and until bran "fell", she was telling him he HAD to go, for the sake of the family. well - that's crap - the best thing for the family would have been to stay together, particularly with winter coming. then of course after bran was hurt, the story changed - after having brow-beaten him into accepting, she then tries to get him to back out of it? this was not for anyone other than herself. just as taking tyrion at the crossroads was for no one but herself. she knew that ned was investigating in kings landing, he was handling it, she had no business taking him.

now she wants vengeance. and vengeance is never honorable. justice yes, vengeance no. so ordering brienne to kill jamie, for vengeance, is not honorable, and is, as other people have said above, breaking HER oath to brienne.

well - that's how i see it, anyway. and my opinion, like so many others, probably stinks... lol

[ríomhaire]

Ha, nice idea.

Do you mean to say Gendry will do a heroic leap out of the bushes or his true parentage would make aa difference?

She needs something to grab the attention of the Brotherhood (Lady Stoneheart is not present at the hanging). I don't think telling them Gendry's parentage will let them leave her go, but it will buy her some time to help convince them to spare her/get a second audience with Stoneheard/escape.

[alguien]

Actually, if you read the terms of Brienne's sworn oath, Catelyn specifically vows to ask Brienne to do nothing that would bring her dishonor or prevent her from getting revenge on Stannis.

So complete and utter obedience is not part of an normal oath of fealty in Westeros. Perhaps with the Kingsguard, but they're not the normal equation.

Murder--via assassination, poison, etc. is universally considered dishonorable in Westeros, therefore, if Stoneheart is asking Brienne to murder Jaime, Brienne is actually well within her rights to refuse.

(asking to her to duel with Jaime on the other hand...is fine. In fact there's a fine tradition in Westeros of dueling friends and loved ones, ie. Aryk vs. Erryk)

Of course, this discussion has been had ad nauseum by me, Happy Ent, and Errant Bard, among others, in the past. I'd recommend to the current posters to look those threads up.

My prediction: the word is "Sword." Pod (and possibly Hyle) will be used as ransom to ensure Brienne carries out her mission to kill Jaime. I don't think Brienne will be able to go through with it, unless she see's evidence that causes her to believe that Jaime has "become corrupted" and even then, I don't know, since she's probably in love with him. She's getting put in the same position, Chivalry vs. Reality, as her forebear Dunk, except its even more difficult for her since she's a woman.

What I think will happen is that Brienne really will become an oathbreaker. That she'll betray Stoneheart and enlist Lannister aid in trying to rescue Pod and Hyle.

[Happy Ent]

plus, well, an oath of fealty usually doesn't extend past the liege's death, in anything i've read at most, it may pass to the heir. when Jaimie gave her the sword, and sent her out... she knew Cat was dead. she is no longer bound at all.

You may think so, but Brienne doesn’t:

[...] no promise was as solemn as one sworn to the dead.

[Nukelavee]

but, that's not the point, ent, that's her feelings on the subject; nothing says that stance is "gospel" in Westeros.

but, y'know - back at ya with - clearly, Brienne doesn't think she's foresworn herself, either. after all, she isn't pissing and moaning about her honour is shit now that she has jaimie's sword. in fact, she truly believes she IS still doing the honourable thing.

you can't have it both ways, not with Brienne and this. either the oath is done,and she was free to honourably take up Jaimie's task; or, she saw no conflict between her oath to Cat, and teh task Jaimie gave her. And if Brienne of all people see's no conflict, it's highly doubtful there is one.

where Brienne is screwed, is where she's dealing with something that has no concerns with anything but vengence. i'm quite certain if Brienne wasn't somebody who had the possibility of reaching and killing Jaimie, the deaths of all 3 of them would have been even more likely, without even the option of reprieve.

[Snow White]

You may think so, but Brienne doesn’t:

[...] no promise was as solemn as one sworn to the dead.

I think there's a clear difference to a promise 'sworn to the dead,' and a promise sworn to a person who later died, and is now undead.

[Shakey]

Mickey wrote

no - uncat is most assuredly not catelyn

Just reread the chapter. I agree with this. I saw no evidence that Catalyn is Stoneheart. It's her body, yes. But, I'm going with a theory that the "Flame of Life" is it's own entity that uses dead bodies to exist.

As for the word itself. I have no idea what it is. But it had best be a good one. She and Pod are already swinging from ropes when she screams. The chance of saving both herself and Pod with a word are perilously thin. My guess is outside intervention. Someone else will cut them free.

[AvengingAryaFan]

I think her words are "sword". She'll go after Jaime.

As for those who say Cat is "in the wrong" in sending Brienne to kill Jaime....remember the last words she heard were "Jaime Lannister says hello" as her son get stabbed in the back, through the heart, right in front of her eyes. She has ever right to want Jaime dead. To her, he is as much as fault for her son's death as the Frey's. Plus he also tried to kill her OTHER son.

Yes, and as we've seen with Tyrion, Catelyn leaps to conclusions based on whatever evidence she's heard, never mind that it's from a man who was at that moment murdering his liege lord, her son - hardly a credible speaker. She believed Bolton's unstated implication over the explicit protestations of Brienne, whom she knows without a doubt to be the very soul of honor. At least she gave Tyrion the chance of a trial ... despite a lot of stalling. Her sense of justice, always weak, seems to have shriveled to nothing in the river. She will hear nothing at all that might tend to exonerate Jaime, not to mention that she murders everybody remotely associated with her enemy, irrespective of personal responsibility. Ye gods, what a loathsome creature she has become.

Just about everybody expects Brienne to avoid death, and I doubt Martin had any hope of truly worrying people on that score. But the resolution of the cliffhanger will more likely than not come out of left field (or out of the woods), just because this is Martin. "Sword" is probably what Martin wants readers to expect, so he will probably intentionally avoid it. I, of course, suspect the word itself will have little actual impact on the outcome.

Fairly soon now (at least in the geological scales used to measure the time between ASOIAF books) we will find out whether it is wiser, in attempting to predict Martin, to expect misdirection and surprise, or to expect straightforward resolution of a cliffhangery mystery. My money is on misdirection and surprise.

[A wilding]

... Catelyn leaps to conclusions based on whatever evidence she's heard, never mind that it's from a man who was at that moment murdering his liege lord, her son - hardly a credible speaker.

I must say, I am rather impressed with the notion that Roose Bolton said "Jaime Lannister sends his regards" when he stabbed Robb just so that Catelyn would incorrectly deduce that Jaime was responsible for Robb's death, with the goal of ensuring that she would hunt him down and kill him. (After all she has no other reason to hate Jaime, and clearly would not have bothered without having heard those words.)

I can't quite work out how Roose managed Catelyn's resurrection though.

[Happy Ent]

My money is on misdirection and surprise.

Errant Bard and myself will spend our winnings on Dancy, Jayde, and Alayaya. We will learn what roast swan tastes like, and how to bathe in Arbor wine.

Also, some boots and maybe a dagger.

[alguien]

Errant Bard and myself will spend our winnings on Dancy, Jayde, and Alayaya. We will learn what roast swan tastes like, and how to bathe in Arbor wine.

Also, some boots and maybe a dagger.

Not raising a crop o' turnips, finding some nice entwife, and sowing a crop o' sons? :)