#I put the braime tag because it's mentioned but it's mostly about jaime as a character

[norringtondeservestheworld]

Connor RK800 and Jaime Lannister: different characters with the same arc, but one work while the other don’t

It’s honestly driving me insane how similar and identical are the arcs of Connor RK800 from Detroit: Become Human and Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones so yeah, now I’m gonna do an entire post (or meta?) about it. It’s gonna be long.

A little background for people who know only one of these fandoms.

Detroit: Become Human is about a future where robots are slaves of humans who abuse and torture them, so they started to “wake up” rebelling and developing free will and emotions like living beings. So the society who sell them create Connor, a very advanced robot designed to stop them.

Game of Thrones is an epic fantasy story set in a fictional world about different powerful families that fight with each other with wars and machinations to destroy each other and gain more power and the throne. Jaime Lannister is a member of one of these families.

These are two very different stories, but so are Connor and Jaime. They have opposite characters, goals and priorities: Jaime always put romantic love above anything else, while Connor doesn’t give a fuck about romance. Jaime is good in communicating with others: he knows how to talk to certain people, can read a room (at least sometimes) and he understands when is being mocked, while Connor is socially awkward and doesn’t really understand when someone is mocking him or someone is sarcastic.

And yet.. they both:

1) have the same beggining

2) are grey characters

3) have an obsession to overcome which is needed for them to develop as character (and if they fail to it, they both gets the involution and the “negative” arc)

4) have the same evolution (or involution, it depends of which arc we are talking about) and the same ending

1) The same beggining

Both these characters start with a child falling from a considerable height, but while one is causing the downfall of the child, the other is trying to save the kid.

The fact that Jaime is trying to kill the boy while Connor is trying to save the girl doesn’t mean that Jaime is the villain and Connor is the hero. It’s more complex than that. 

Jaime is trying to kill Bran because the boy just saw him having sex with his twin and if he says to anyone what he saw Jaime and his sister would have died. He did it to protect their lives. It wasn’t really about Bran. It was about him and Cersei.

On the other hand, Connor is trying to save Emma not because he cares for her or wants her to be safe, but because it’s his mission. He is a police android who knew really well, even before his arrival on the scene, that his mission was saving the child at all costs. If his mission was killing Emma he would have done it. It wasn’t really about Emma. It was about the mission.

2) are grey characters

Being in both fandoms, I noticed that Connor is way more popular than Jaime in terms of liking a character, while Jaime is more known as a character than Connor because Game of Thrones is more famous than Detroit: Become Human. Jaime is really loved by a part of the got fandom, but the other part look at him as selfish and evil because of everything he did, while Connor is loved by 98% of the dbh fandom, but in truth Connor’s actions aren’t better than Jaime’s actions. I think this happens because:

a) Jaime’s actions are motivated by his incestual and toxic relationship with his sister, so I think some people tend to dislike him more not for the actual actions but because of their disgust about the incest part

b) Connor being socially awkward. There is this tendency to see characters who are socially awkward being always sweet and cinnamon rolls because they aren’t good at communicating with others

In the first case, Jaime’s actions aren’t worse than Connor’s, are only more disgusting which is different and for the second option, Connor isn’t socially awkward because he can’t hurt a fly. He can and he will. He is socially awkward because he is an android created to be a police officer, so they gave him good combat skills and the intelligence he needed to deal with deviants (that’s how are called the robots who developed free will and “woke up”). I assure you, he isn’t awkward when he has to deal with them. Connor was created to do this. He isn’t an android created to make friends, so why bother to give him social skills?

Let’s make a recap:

What Jaime did:

a) tried to kill Bran to protect his relationship with Cersei. But did Bran die? No.

b) threatened Edmure and his kids to return to Cersei? Okay, but did Edmure die? Again, no.

c) fucked Cersei next to their son’s corpse who just died. Disgustingly disgusting. But again, someone got hurt? Someone died?

d) killed his cousin to return to Cersei. Okay. Fair. One person died.

Let’s talk about Connor now. He:

a) Manipulated and lied to deviants to accomplish his mission 

b) can kill Daniel, the Tracis, Ortiz’s android, Rupert, Cloe, Simon, Markus, North and a lot of other androids (and humans too) to accomplish his mission

c) can kill Hank, which is the closest person he has in his life, to accomplish his mission

Connor is not a baby. He is a fucking terminator who can destroy anything that it moves to accomplish his mission. Yes, Detroit: Become Human is a game where the actions of the characters are decided by the gamer, so he can do these things or don’t, but if you decide to make him do these things you never got the feeling he’s out of character. Because he is not.

Yes Jaime is what he is and did the things we know, but Connor too did some messed up things. And I’m pretty sure he killed more and caused more pain than Jaime.

At the end of the game, when he has to locate Jericho to stop the leader of the revolution of the deviants, he is able to remove the head of one android he killed to use it against an another android (killed by Connor too) to get the location of Jericho and after that he drops the head as it was nothing.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who is worse between Jaime and Connor. What I am trying to say it’s that they are both grey characters. They both started as negative characters. Yes, Connor too. Because even if you choose every possible good and positive choice with Connor, he is still a negative character at the beginning. He is a very advanced robot at humans side (humans that are clearly the villains since they are the ones abusing and torturing robots) which priority is hunting androids who just want to be free. It doesn’t really matter if he isn’t the one to kill them, because he knows really well that if he succeeds (and he wants to succeed) they get killed. 

That’s why both Connor and Jaime have two paths in front of them. And what path they’ll take it depends by the next point.

3) have an obsession to overcome which is needed for them to develop as a character

Both Jaime and Connor, despite starting as negative characters, have the potential to have a redemption arc, but this is up to them and to get it they have an obstacle to overcome: their obsession.

For Jaime the obsession for Cersei, for Connor the obsession for his mission. 

This obsession is what motivated their story and all their actions. It’s there from the beggining. From the moment they tried to kill/save the child. Jaime did it for Cersei. Connor did it for his mission. Every “negative” thing they did was because of that. In the last point, where I made a list of the bad things they did, you can notice all these actions were motivated by that.

To both of them happened things during the story that could or couldn’t change them: Jaime had it with Brienne, a noble and honorable warrior who reminded him who he wanted to be and for the first time in his life he developed a romantic attraction toward someone who wasn’t his sister, and Connor had it with Hank, the human police officer he worked with who had a way more “human” approach to what they were investigating.

For both of them is really hard to overcome it because it’s all they know for most of their life (in case of Jaime) or are programmed to do it (in case of Connor) and it isn’t only something they had in their heads. Both of them got manipulated by people (Cersei for Jaime, Amanda for Connor) who did the best they could to convince them there wasn’t anything else to make sure they remained in this cage for their own interests.

To prevent them from becoming their own person and being free to be who they want to be, and not what they want them to be.

This it’s the Jaime and Connor arc. Becoming their own person. Choosing for themselves. Be free from the manipulations. And the two arcs they have in front of them are just one in which they succeed, and one in which they fail.

4) have the same evolution (or involution, it depends of which arc we are talking about) and the same ending

Both Connor and Jaime have the potential for a redemption arc because even after all those bad things they did because of their obsession, they did good things too. They aren’t monsters.

Jaime saved Brienne risking his life and saved her from being raped. He also saved milions of lives by murdering the king, even if that meant getting the nickname of Kingslayer.

Connor can save Hank. Can choose to not kill the Tracis. Can choose to not kill Cloe. Can help Markus to save North. 

They mostly did all these things when they were away from the toxic person who brings the worst of them (Amanda and Cersei) but near someone who bring the best of them (Hank, Tyrion and Brienne).

And the best part is that all these good actions they did went against their priority: for Connor saving Hank means letting the deviant go, when catching him was his mission. Jaime returning to Harrenhal to save Brienne means delay his coming back to Cersei, when Cersei is the most important thing to him. 

Despite both having all their life surrounded by this “obsession”, sometimes they decided to do the right thing even if that meant going against what mattered to them the most and their own interests.

This didn’t mean that they weren’t obsessed anymore, it means that for a moment, their desire to be their own person was stronger than their obsession.

But it was just a moment.

Connor and Jaime, for most of the story, are in a “limbo” where they pass from doing bad things because of their obsession (most of the times) to doing good things because they want to (few times). During this part of their story, it doesn’t mean that if they do a bad thing they’ll go to the negative arc and it doesn’t mean that if they do a good thing they’ll go to the positive arc, because none of these decisions are the definitive one.

It’s the decision they will take in their climax scene is the one that determines their future, their arc and their ending.

a) They decide to do the right thing which go against their obsession in their climax scene because they matured as characters for the better -> Their strenght and everything and everyone they faced was enough to overcome their obsession -> they become their own person letting go forever the obsession -> Positive Arc

Jaime: Book!Jaime is currently having this arc in the books, where is pretty done with Cersei and doesn’t even think of returning to her knowing really well she needs him. And this is also the arc Show!Jaime was supposed to have in the series.

Connor: Deviant Connor is the arc Connor will have if he overcome his obsession. He will become a deviant (meaning he outpassed his programation and became his own person) and will join the revolution of the androids, the very same revoution that he was created to stop (and he was obsessed to stop it, since it was his mission). He will infiltrate in the society that creates androids freeing all the robots who are there (and they are a lot) and helps the cause. In the end, he will help robots getting rights as living beings and he will be free to be himself with a person who actually care for him (Hank) with their relationship being stronger.

b) They decide to do the same bad things they did at the beginning being once again slaves of their obsession -> everything and everyone they faced didn’t change them showing that they didn’t matured and didn’t learn anything -> nothing will never be as important as their obsession -> Negative Arc

Jaime: Show!Jaime got this (or at least D&D thought he got this). He received an opportunity to have a better and new life, a life with Brienne who loved him and in doing so he was able to be himself, but he ruined it to return to his obsession who almost got him killed few days before because he wasn’t able to overcome it. So he returned to his obsession (Cersei) and dies.

Connor: Machine Connor is the arc Connor will have if he fails to overcome his obsession. He too received an opportunity to do the right thing, to help his people and be free, but he ruined it to continue his mission. So he will kill everyone who stands in his way (Hank too, who was the closest person of his life) to murder the leader of the deviants. If he fails, he dies. If he succeed and he is able to kill him, all the deviants will be destroyed (meaning there will be a genocide of his own people) and androids will return to be slaves for humans for ever. And Connor will die, because he accomplished his mission so he isn’t needed anymore. Connor is intended to die either way if he goes to this path.

Both Jaime and Connor, if they have a failed redemption arc, return to their old manners and how they were at the beginning, and both died. So..

Why an arc work and the other don’t?

Why an arc is appreciated and considered a sad but good storyline and plausible with no characters being ruined while the other is hated by everyone with all the characters who are involved being ruined and OOC?

For multiple reasons actually.

1) the climax scene

The scene where the character finally take a definitive decision and his path is chosen can’t be a random scene because it’s not a random scene. It’s the scene where the destiny of the character is chosen, so it has to:

- be important and people who are watching it (or reading it if it’s a book) must know it and feel it that something big is coming 

- every factor (the music, the acting, the dialogue etc) must be cured for that scene 

The climax scene they chose and wrote for Connor work perfectly because has all these requirements:

a) Connor and Markus are two of the main characters of the story but never actually met each other before this scene, so from the moment you realize they are in the same room and they actually met you know something big is gonna happen. Moreover, we know Connor is there to kill the leader of the deviants, which is Markus, so you also feel tense because you are gonna see two characters you got attached to being an enemy to each other because they are at opposite sides so again, something’s gonna happen.

b) The music is fitting for the scene, the acting of Bryan Dechart (Connor’s actor) is good as he entered sure of himself but the more Markus talked the more Connor realized he was right so he becomes less secure until he is full of doubts and all the dialogue is about him having to make a choice about who he wants to be. And as if that weren't enough, Markus ends it with “I think the time has come to you for ask yourself that question” and “it’s time to decide” making perfectly clear that this choice is gonna be definitive, and he is saying it not only to Connor but to us too.

Now let’s see the Jaime one.

a) It’s important? I have absolutely no idea. It doesn’t look or feel important. 

b) the music is fitting? There was music? I honestly don’t remember. I can’t notice the music because I’m busy to try to understand what the fuck is going on. The dialogue is fitting? What dialogue? All Jaime is saying here is a list of the bad things he did because of Cersei (including lies since some things he says didn’t happen that way just to confuse who is watching even more) and “She is hateful and so am I” like?? What does it mean? This is not a dialogue. This is putting random words together to do a sentence. The acting is fitting? Lmao of course not! Waldau’s acting is really confusing??? Why he looks sad? Why all he is saying is that he is a bad person and not a word about  who he wants to be? This isn’t a grey character who decided is path, this is someone who feels guilty for something he did in the past and wants to be reassured and or he feels like he deserves pain and death because of it. Well if this is the case, than this is a totally different topic that has nothing to do with choosing between overcome an obsession or succumb to it. Fuck, it’s been 4 years since this scene, and I still don’t understand what the fuck is going on and what they wanted to show. What the fuck I am watching?? Can someone explains it to me?? Hello???

This doesn’t look like a climax scene. And it doesn’t look like a climax scene because IT’S NOT.

Because Jaime had already his climax scene.

a) it’s important? Well yes. The time tells us it is. This is a series and this scene is happening at the end of a season so people expect it to be important.

b) The music is fitting? Very. You could feel it in your bones. The dialogue is fitting? Yes. They don’t talk directly about Jaime and him having to take a decision, but it’s related to that because we see Jaime and Cersei arguing about something and Jaime realizing he had enough (just like Connor in his climax scene is realizing who he truly is) and he decides right here not because he has to but because he is 100% sure of what he wants and decides with zero regrets.

This climax scene was setting Jaime on the positive arc, because he overcomed his obsession. His obsession is Cersei and the sexual relationship he has with her, but here he decides to leave her, and ending the conversation saying “I don’t believe you” and by the acting, the voice and the movements of Waldau, which is excellent, we know he meant “I don’t love you anymore”.

All of this is even more accentuated by this scene that happens soon after that:

Cersei and the relationship with her being the obsession of Jaime means that if he kisses, sleeps and starts a romantic relationship with a different woman (which he did) after he spent the 40+ years of his life always being loyal to Cersei is the ultimate, irrefutable prove that he got over it. It doesn’t matter how much he loves Brienne, if he still obsesses over Cersei it couldn’t never happened. Never. You can’t make him overcome an obsession and then return to that obsession in a minute. This is not how writing works.

But since Benioff and Weiss don’t know how to do their jobs, after these two scenes (the climax one and the second which accentuated the path Jaime is in) they put the scene they think it’s the climax scene, when it’s just a scene that doesn’t work narratively after the two I just mentioned. Which add another problem:

the decision the character takes in the climax scene is definitive and irreversible. You can’t just put a climax scene where the character decides and then one second later make him change his mind all of sudden. Him passing from a good action to a bad one was supposed to happen before the climax scene, when the character was still grey and still couldn’t decide and the reason both Connor and Jaime decide without doubts and regrets in their climax scene is because they both have no doubts and regrets anymore. 

In Detroit: Become Human, every action Connor did and every word he says after that scene is convinced, there is not even a shadow of a doubt, no matter which arc is in. Despite the game giving you the choices of what to do or say, you’ll never get a choice of Connor helping the deviants if he is Machine Connor, and you’ll never get a choice of Connor helping the humans if the is Deviant Connor. Because it’s irreversible. There is no going back.

So what we got was a mess and both arcs of Jaime being ruined even before they started.

2) OOC

Both Connor and Jaime being grey characters for most of the story means that is possible to write them a good written arc where they remain in character all the time without putting forced things and making them say and do something they wouldn’t, no matter if they are in a positive or negative arc.

Connor remains himself and in character for the entirely of his arc (no matter which arc is). If he is Machine Connor so he has the negative arc, his character doesn’t get reduced to a caricature and he doesn’t lose his intelligence or badass moments, and he still says and does things that Connor would have totally said or done. 

The fact that now is Machine Connor doesn’t mean he is a sociopath who doesn’t care of anything else, it does only mean that everything always comes after his obsession (the mission) because that obsession is and will always be until his death is priority, everything else is after that. That’s part of the reason his character isn’t ruined. He still cares for Hank for example, and when he dies, he looks troubled and in one case he is the one to kill him, and he does it because Hank gets in the way of his mission, which matters more, so he did it, even if he still cared about him. 

He also doesn’t become stupid all of sudden because he is intended to die. Machine Connor is smart enough to know that the best way to kill Markus is finding a sniper rifle and the right roof and he is smart enough to know that if he gets interrupted the only way for him to accomplish his mission is killing who interrupted him or killing himself after saving his memory so the next Connor will know what to do. He also doesn’t have to move to the other side of the country in two seconds with the story being set in the same city, so he is where is supposed to be without resorting to absurd and improbable teleporters. Machine Connor gets emotional and poetic scenes without getting ruined to force them.

Jaime, from the moment he left Brienne to return to Cersei (so from the moment the writers think his arc begins) becomes a totally different person. He starts to say and do things that contradict his character, the writers were able to destroy years spent to create this character and who he is with a single sentence. Everything that was important to him apart from Cersei disappears, and the things that made him an interesting character like killing the king to protect the innocents have zero value now, because “actually I never cared for them, innocents or otherwise”. Cersei isn’t his priority. Cersei is the only thing he cares about, because the writers deleted every single other part of him and at the end, he isn’t even a character anymore.

He doesn’t only lose all his intelligence, but simple common sense too, all to force scenes that could have happened in a smarter way, like him having to get unnoticed to get to Cersei and yet he shows his golden hand which is the only one to have in all Westeros, just to get caught and have the scene with Tyrion. And of course, he is able to arrive to the other part of the country even before characters who left before him in a blink of an eye because the writers decided so and fuck logic. 

3) Realistic reactions to the characters around them

Both Show!Jaime and Machine Connor have, just before the end and their death, a scene with a character they care about and who cares for them: Tyrion for Jaime and Hank for Connor. In both cases, the way they write the main character it expands to the other character too, meaning that since Jaime is OOC, Tyrion becomes OOC too to force the scene the writers wanted for them, while in the other case since Connor is in character, Hank is in character too, and it’s the scene that is written in a way to be plausible because of these characters, and not the opposite. 

Jaime got caught in his way to return to Cersei and he meets Tyrion. The last time they talked Jaime was still in a relationship with Brienne (which lasted weeks, let’s remember that) and Tyrion expressed how happy he was that Jaime was happy with Brienne because he cares for Jaime wants him to be happy while now is in front of a tormented Jaime who left Brienne, the same woman that was making Jaime happy, to return to the one that abused and tried to kill BOTH OF THEM, and he decides to.. help him to return to Cersei so he will return to be miserable and probably die (and he will)? 

The writers were so desperate to make a scene of them hugging to make watchers cry sad tears that forgot in which situation these characters are, with who they are and what we know about them and what type of relationship they have with each other and with Cersei. It would never ended with hugging. Why Tyrion should help the brother he loves to leave what made him happy and return to the one who hurted both for all their lives? Once again the characters are ruined by forcing a specific scene, a scene that because of it meant nothing to me. Yes, Jaime and Tyrion had a beautiful relationship and a great bond and I love the scenes where they show how close they are. But these aren’t Jaime and Tyrion anymore. So I feel nothing (and nope, I’m not going to create gifs of that idiotic scene from that cursed episode, if you wanna see it just go to Youtube).

Connor and Hank have a very strong relationship too, but they remain in character. Hank wanted Connor being himself and freeing himself from his obsession (just like Tyrion wanted Jaime to be happy, with Brienne) but on the contrary of Tyrion, Hank didn’t forget who he was because it was “convenient” so he has the realistic reaction he was supposed to have, and because of that this time there aren’t gonna be hugs and sweet words, but a fight.

With “fight” I don’t mean they’ll gonna scream and push each other, with “fight” I mean a real fight, that will end only with one of them killing the other. 

Machine Connor is gonna follow his mission and killing everyone who stand in his way (in this case, unfortunately it’s Hank) even if he cares for Hank and Hank is not gonna let Connor kill the leader of the androids because it’s not right and by now he knows that the only way to stop him is to kill him and he will, even if he cares for Connor. And they both know it.

And that is what makes the scene powerful and way more emotional than a fake hug between two fake characters who became the shadows of themselves. It’s real, it’s tragically beautiful and sad, poetic in a way (a robot fighting for humans and a human fighting for the robots) but it works.

Of course having Jaime and Tyrion fighting to death wouldn’t make sense. Connor and Hank are doing it because they had a different relationship from them. They knew each other for less time and even if they care for each other, they had a rocky start so them having this interaction is fitting to them. Jaime and Tyrion are siblings who cared for each other since ever, so their clash couldn’t be that violent, but they had to have a clash. Tyrion being disappointed in Jaime and refusing to free him was enough. But we all know what we got, right?

In conclusion, I’d like to say that I made this meta first to analyze Jaime and Connor as characters because I find really interesting they had so much in common and also because I’m fucking tired of people saying that “Jaime’s arc was perfect you simply didn’t get the happy ending you wanted for him” because Machine Connor arc is the prove that is possible to write a failed redemption arc which is satisfying and appreciated, and Detroit: Become Human is written by David Cage which isn’t the best screenwriter in the world, but he is in the Olympus compared to the writing of D&D.

Machine Connor and Show!Jaime have exactly the same arc (and the same ending), the only difference is that one is written well and the other isn’t, and it’s really crazy thinking of how the writing of a fucking videogame which isn’t even that famous is better than the finale of one of the most famous series in the world.