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This is an interesting take on the whole mess of the last season.

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Do you think the books will end this way as well? I just can’t see how they’d get to this point specifically with Jaime’s character, no matter how much GRRM explains it. Especially leaving Brienne like that, sleeping with her knowing that he’s going to leave her for Cersei immediately afterwards.

Do I think it will end that way for Jaime and Brienne in the books? No.

I think D&D are using GRRM’s plot points without any of his context, and sometimes with the wrong characters, and in the wrong order. 

Brienne and Jaime are hit by four massive deviations:

Their current Riverlands/Vale/wherever (Stoneheart?) arc was dropped.

Sansa’s arc was altered. :/

Cersei as final big bad in the books? Laughable. I think it’s much more likely to be (f)Aegon.

The Night King in the books is a mythical/historical figure, and I don’t think there will be one central defeatable character to stop the threat of the Others. For that reason, I would be very surprised if the fight against the Others is wrapped as easily.

If I had to guess the Brienne and Jaime plot points that GRRM shared with D&D, they were probably:

Jaime and Brienne start banging

Brienne (maybe both of them) finds/helps Sansa

Jaime valonqars Cersei

Jaime & Brienne fight in the final battle against the Others

How their show story played out:

Game of Thrones overpowered Cersei for far longer than George will. This combined with the elimination of Jaime and Brienne’s post-Dance storyline meant that D&D were left to invent stories for both of them (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they both end up with Sansa), that did not include one another when they should have. 

As a result, Jaime was left to circle Cersei’s orbit, subservient to her storyline, for far longer than he should have. They apparently found it easier to keep him from breaking up with her in order to make that believable, eliminating his discovery of her infidelity and leaving him in a state of arrested development with regard to their relationship that they only visited occasionally (in minor ways) when they needed some drama.

No disagreements between Jaime and Cersei were allowed to be serious enough for him to actually break ties with her. Partly because he was a useful tool in the plot they invented for Cersei once she seized the throne in her own right, and partly because they didn’t have anything else relevant to the plot for him to do. They were clearly just keeping him around for the final fight against the Night King. Brienne meanwhile did eventually find and serve Sansa (book plot point).

So we reach Season 8, and they send Jaime off to battle the Night King (book plot point), decide they may as well finally have him get with Brienne (book plot point), after all they laid the groundwork for their relationship starting in Season 2. Then once that’s all over, Jaime has to get back to KL to die with Cersei, probably because they couldn’t bear to have him valonqar her, if I had to guess. That is most likely a result of their intense fascination with their show version of her character.

How I suspect their book story will play out:

Jaime and Brienne (currently together in the Riverlands or wherever in the books) will play out whatever their Winds+ storyline is, which they definitely both survive. They will then part ways with Jaime returning to deal with Cersei and however many of their kids are still alive, and Brienne doing whatever with Sansa (taking her to Jon? idk). I would not be at all surprised if they start banging before they separate, but who knows.

Jaime “deals” with Cersei–possibly at KL, possibly at Casterly Rock–and probably ends up killing her or causing her death. I believe he outlives her (weirwood stump dream, lights). Jaime, probably with Widow’s Wail in hand, then joins Brienne and everyone else for the final battle in the North (and also has his long awaited Tyrion reunion). I believe Jaime dies in battle against the Others. Brienne lives in the books too, or I eat my hat.

The difference between the book and show Jaime/Brienne relationship:

Brienne and Jaime are written as soulmates in the books. Everything about their arcs is made to fit together like two sides of a zipper. George’s big joke is that it’s Cersei and Jaime who talk and look like soulmates, when it’s actually Brienne and Jaime who in every conceivable way complement one another. 

Jaime and Cersei’s “romance” is a satirical send up like Romeo and Juliet, made to mock the silliest elements of typical melodramatic tragic love. It’s at the center of Jaime’s origin story, but theirs is not the story GRRM is telling in the books. I say again: 

There is a reason Jaime doesn’t need a pov until he meets Brienne.

The imagery in Jaime’s weirwood stump dream of Cersei and her light leaving him while Brienne’s lit sword is the only thing standing between him and death is, to me, as clear as an author can be without flat out stating intended plot points about where ALL of that is headed.

If you think–for one moment–that Jaime and Brienne are not one another’s great loves in the books, you have failed utterly to interpret the narrative. Did GRRM assume that D&D would understand that the plot point of “Jaime and Brienne start banging” meant that they were consummating their soul deep love? Probably. Did D&D totally not pay any real attention to Jaime’s pov ever and probably never do anything but have their interns write summaries for Feast and Dance? Probably. 

They clearly know JB is a love story, but in their minds Cersei is the center of the Westeros universe and it would be inconceivable for Jaime not to feel exactly the same way about her that they do. And hey, Jaime always will love Cersei in a way in the books, but I absolutely do not believe that love will ever EVER be to the exclusion of Brienne. 

If you never really read Jaime’s Feast and Dance chapters, you might not understand exactly how far Jaime has moved on emotionally. I think they heard the plot point “Jaime valonqars Cersei” and just decided, oh tragic love! And I really do think that’s the explanation. Jaime and Brienne’s romance being the big central thing for Jaime’s character did not fit their version of Cersei’s story, and just did not compute with their understanding of his character.

(And never underestimate how much they really may have wanted to stick it to Nikolaj for harassing them for years about when they were finally going to portray Jaime’s real book story and love affair with Brienne. We know George told Gwendoline that Jaime and Brienne were his Beauty and the Beast. I have no doubt GRRM told Nikolaj the same. No wonder he kept playing Jaime toward that ultimate end.)

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Benioff and Weiss’ biggest problem is they don’t realize that ultimately, ASOIAF is a character-driven work. It’s why even if they hit all the plot points, they’ll still fall flat because they have no understanding of the characters as characters, only as plot devices. 

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i legitimately feel so bad for all these actors who put a decade’s worth of their work, and hearts, and lives into this show and these characters just for d&d to give almost all of them the most disappointing endings imaginable because they got bored of their own show. 

the worst final season, the most disappointing, and all these people involved deserve so much better.

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The Real Jaime Lannister

The real Jaime often thinks of Brienne, and how she fares, and if she’s still honorable as ever. 

The real Jaime stabbed a king so a city will not burn. Because he cares for the small people. The weak, the innocent. Those he swore to protect. The real Jaime CARES. ABOUT. THEM. 

The real Jaime lived with the name Kingslayer because he also felt he deserved it. Despite saving a city he did turn his back on a king he swore to protect. And so he still carried the shame BECAUSE HE WAS THAT HONORABLE. 

The real Jaime lost his hand to save a stranger from rape. The real Jaime jumped into a bear pit to save a friend. The real Jaime gave Valyrian Steel to a woman he respected. 

The real Jaime rode North to follow Brienne and fight for the living - whether it was against White Walkers or Lady Stoneheart. 

The real Jaime is good and honorable and kind. 

And the whole of Westeros matters to him more than his incest and his sister. 

D&D can suck my dick - they will not take Jaime away from me. Motherfucking assholes. 

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Jaime fans: What’s great about Jaime is that he starts off the show as seemingly irredeemable. He begins by pushing off a child from a tower, is labeled Kingslayer, is in a relationship with his sister and doesn’t act kind at all in the beginning. But then, we get a hint of the person underneath all that - we see his motivations behind doing his awful acts, and that there IS a sense of loyalty with him, as horrible as his actions are. Then, when he meets Brienne, we see the more humane part of Jaime come out, and we - and Jaime himself - get to see that Jaime CAN be more than his past. He has a goodness inside of him that is there, and it’s not something Brienne created but that she helped to bring out, and Jaime is a character who shows that you are more than your mistakes. This is why Bran helps him live, why he forgives him - Jaime has a true redemption story, and he finally has the chance to choose the kind of man who he wants to be, and that’s going to be seen when he goes to King’s Landing to kill Cersei. That’s seen in the show AND books, because he’s realizing how toxic this relationship is. In this essay, we -

D&D, throwing the essay in the trash: lol nah too long anyway jaime’s in love with his sister after all and he’s gonna die with her hahahaha wow we’re such good writers #subvertingexpectations

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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - Euroman

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“This is just me fucking around. I just got bored one day and put it on. Quite often Dany’s wigs were lying around. If that picture says anything, it’s about how much of your time is spent in hair and makeup. ”

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It made no sense. They spent 8 seasons saying how terrible the NK was, to have him killed by a teenager? So the gr8 war is actually against Cersei? What is the point of the dragons? And Bran's and Daenerys' visions???

It's ridiculous!!!

D&D about making Arya kill the Night King

(From the Inside the Episode:)

David: For, God, I think it’s probably 3 years now or something, we’ve known that it was gonna to be Arya who delivers that fatal blow.

Dan: She seemed like the best candidate provided we weren’t thinking about her in that moment. One of the great things about having this many people you care about in a sequence together is you can kind of pull people’s attention and focus to people that they care about a lot like Jon and like Dany, Theon and Bran, not to mention Tyrion and Sansa in the crypts. So you’re going all over the place with people who you’re desperately worried for and hopefully you forget about the fact that Arya Stark ran out of that castle with the battle drums playing and going towards some purpose, and we don’t know what until it happens.

David: We hope to kind of avoid the expected, and Jon Snow has always been the hero, the one who’s been the savior, but it just didn’t seem right to us for this moment. We knew it had to be Valyrian Steel to the exact spot where the Child of the Forest put the dragonglass blade to create the Night King, and he is un-created by the Valyerian Steel. At the end of it it’s still, it’s a victory for the living but at great cost because some of our favorite characters fall along the way.

Just to clarify this, D&D said that making Arya be the one who kills the Night King (who btw isn’t mentioned in the books) was their own choice, and they did  it for shock value. So it was not based on anything GRRM said to them.

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Am I the only one dissapointed in the episode?

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We’ll join our houses.

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Emilia Clarke for Omaze

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I love Bran so much like the dude had already decided he wouldn’t be telling the other Starks what Jaime did to him and he STILL went and said the exact same words Jaime said before pushing him just to scare the shit out of Jaime again what an icon

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Book!Jon and Ghost: *becoming one with each other, sense each other’s feelings, strong-ass warg bond*

Show!Jon and Ghost: *stand within 5 feet of each other for 10 seconds every 2 years*

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