#and now im like. death can happen at any moment. i need to sieze the day and also con someone into falling in love with me so i

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[joannalannister]

Have you written anything on Jaime's decision at the end of AFFC? Because it's so associated with "Jaime breaking free of toxic Lannister (especially Cersei)" and I just didn't get that vibe from it?

Hi! I don’t think I’ve ever written anything about it because this topic is the wankiest of wank bait, but yeah, like you, I’ve personally never felt that Jaime was “breaking free” of the toxicity of House Lannister from his chapters in AFFC/ADWD. 

(I don’t know who or what you’re quoting in this ask, and I mean no offense to whoever is saying that. This is just my opinion on Jaime’s FeastDance chapters and obviously some people interpret it differently and that’s cool. I’m really not looking for wank here.)

So when you say “Jaime’s decision at the end of AFFC” I’m assuming you mean this one?

“No, my lord. The bird was from King’s Landing. I took the liberty … I did not know …” He held the letter out. 

Jaime read it in the window seat, bathed in the light of that cold white morning. Qyburn’s words were terse and to the point, Cersei’s fevered and fervent. Come at once, she said. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once. 

Vyman was hovering by the door, waiting, and Jaime sensed that Peck was watching too. “Does my lord wish to answer?” the maester asked, after a long silence. 

A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. “No,” he said. “Put this in the fire.”

To me, this passage reflects how Jaime really doesn’t have the answers, at least right now: “He found himself wondering what his father would do to feed the realm, before he remembered that Tywin Lannister was dead.”

Cersei makes herself plain: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

But how does Jaime feel about Cersei? Does he hate her? (And speaking of feelings, what does Jaime feel toward his father, who told him that love was useless? And what of Tyrion, the brother he loved? And what of Br*enne, a true knight from the stories come to life?) Can Jaime even help Cersei? Does he love her? (“The question is, who are you?”) (”Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer.”) Can he save her? Does he love her? Does he need her? Does he love her?

Jaime’s a whole mess of conflicted emotions right now, and he wishes things could be like they were:

There was a time, not long ago, when he might have been out making snowballs with the best of them, to fling at Tyrion when he waddled by, or slip down the back of Cersei’s gown. You need two hands to make a decent snowball, though.

But Jaime has only “One hand, clasped tight around the sword hilt. Only one” and really, literally, Jaime has no answers at the moment. So he delays, he demurs. “Put this in the fire.” He is not ready to answer Cersei yet.

“The sooner we are done with Riverrun, the sooner I’ll be back at Cersei’s side.” What Jaime would do then he did not know.

Consider:

“There is sitting and there is sitting, […] Each one [Tywin/Robb] waits for the other to move”

and:

Cersei gave him a lingering look. “You know,” she said, “for a moment you [Jaime] sounded quite like Father.”

I think you also have to consider the context of this decision. The maester reads his mail, and Jaime’s squire who admires and adores him “was watching too” so how could Jaime respond, even if he did have answers? ”Would you sooner have a father or a chair, lad? Jaime wished he knew the answer.” // “The question is, who are you?” // “We are not Targaryens!”

Also, everyone believes that Jaime is still a fearsome swordsman. I don’t think Cersei (or most people, for that matter) realizes that Jaime can’t be her champion. If Jaime were to champion her, Cersei would lose her trial (bad), and Jaime’s secret would be revealed (also bad). Jaime’s relying on his reputation. (And Genna said Jaime wasn’t Tywin’s true heir. Heh.) 

How can Jaime explain that he cannot help Cersei, cannot save her, and in a letter, no less? A letter read/written by Vyman, who served Edmure Tully, and Hoster before him? A letter that could easily be intercepted? No, he could not give Cersei an explanation in his letter. He could only give her a refusal, and that would infuriate her. (Does he love her? Does he love her? Does he love her?) 

He says these things in ADWD:

Past time this was ended, thought Jaime Lannister. With Riverrun now safely in Lannister hands, Raventree was the remnant of the Young Wolf’s short-lived kingdom. Once it yielded, his work along the Trident would be done, and he would be free to return to King’s Landing. To the king, he told himself, but another part of him whispered, to Cersei.

He would have to face her, he supposed. Assuming the High Septon had not put her to death by the time he got back to the city. “Come at once,” she had written, in the letter he’d had Peck burn at Riverrun. “Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.” Her need was real enough, Jaime did not doubt. As for the rest … she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know … Even if he had gone back, he could not hope to save her. She was guilty of every treason laid against her, and he was short a sword hand.

(^^This “She was guilty of every treason…” sort of makes me worried, as if Jaime is perhaps deflecting all the blame for his own treasons onto Cersei, like it doesn’t take two to tango….) 

Anyways … I personally wouldn’t describe this as Jaime ~breaking free~ of the Lannister regime when a part of him is looking forward to returning to Cersei. 

But I think there’s another part of Jaime that doesn’t want to return to Cersei, which is why he so readily jaunts off with Br*enne to chase his dreams of true knighthood. 

That’s the thing about Jaime imo. He’s a man divided. Torn between Lannister crimson and Kingsguard white, between his (older) sister and his baby brother, between Cersei and Br*enne, between one vow and another, between his loyalty to the Lannister regime and his aspirations of true knighthood. 

“So many vows … they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.“

Jaime’s the middle child, Beauty and Beast both. We first meet him wearing black, but he’s renowned for his kingsguard white, but allegedly “it was that white cloak that soiled” Jaime and reduced him to this grey liminality. He vacillates back and forth, an ever swinging pendulum. One moment he is angered that Gregor would smash Pia’s teeth in, another moment fantasizing that he “smashed his sister’s teeth to splinters with his golden hand, just as Gregor Clegane had done to poor Pia.” 

I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s like Jaime is trying to ride two horses in the Riverlands, and he can’t ride two horses. He’s trying to hold on to everything, Cersei and Tyrion, honor and glory, all that, but now he has only one hand, and he can’t hold on to two things at once any more. “Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”

But Jaime hasn’t come to that choosing yet. “Throw this in the fire.”

In ADWD we see the pendulum swing toward Br*enne, but what will happen in TWOW? How will Jaime feel when he learns his true knight has lied to him, and that even true knights can be grey? I imagine Jaime will feel betrayed. I suspect a second litany of betrayal for Br*enne, analogous to the one for Cersei: “… she’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know …" 

“False as fool’s gold.” 

After escaping Stoneheart, Jaime will go to King’s Landing at last:

Once he found the Blackfish, he would be free to return to King’s Landing, where he belonged. My place is with my king. With my son. 

But I think Jaime arrives to find Tommen dead, and Cersei fled with Myrcella to her last stronghold, Casterly Rock, since KL is about to be destroyed, entirely. And Jaime will have failed yet another king. 

Nothing in AFFC/ADWD suggests to me that Jaime’s abandoned the Lannister regime, despite how angry he is at Cersei. He still supports Tommen, and I will bet money that Jaime follows Cersei to CR after the wildfire explosion at the end of TWOW and that he eventually recognizes Myrcella as his queen in the beginning of ADOS.

And I don’t know what’s going to push Jaime over the edge, but I will bet money that Jaime will valonqar Cersei at Casterly Rock in ADOS. I think this is Jaime’s choosing, and I think he will actively choose Lannister toxicity. Strangling your sister/lover sounds like a pretty toxic thing to me, no? idk I could be wrong, who knows.

But I don’t see Jaime actively working to bring down the Lannister regime. idk what happens with Jaime after Cersei’s death, all bets are off once she dies, but at least right now, there’s nothing to me that suggests that Jaime recognizes that Tommen has no right to the Throne, that the Lannisters have no right to sieze Riverrun, no right to hunt the Blackfish, or that the entire government is corrupt, things which I think would be necessary for Jaime to distance himself from the evils of House Lannister?

(I think it’s Tyrion who is beginning to understand that the Lannister regime is wrong, he was the only one calling out Lannister bullshit even when he was in the middle of said bullshit. Tyrion hasn’t yet escaped from Tywin’s dark, toxic shadow, but I think it’s Tyrion who does that, not Jaime.) 

TLDR - nope, im like you, i dont get that vibe either. Maybe I’m wrong tho *shrug emoji*