#and would quickly clarify they don't see him as an actual literal 3 year old if asked

[clairenatural]

I am NOT starting problems but I think sometimes people take nuanced and complex topics and then, once those have been discussed into the ground, refer to them in not nuanced and oversimplified terms as shorthand. assuming people who see the shorthand will have the context of the broader discussion. but then people see that completely oversimplified shorthand and think that's just what people think and that that's the entirety of the conversation and get (understandably) irritated but like. Nobody is saying that we just got tired of typing a whole paragraph to refer to a concept when we could say a few words

[ohcaptaintarthister]

The Assassination of Jaime Lannister*

Rant contains spoilers of Season 8 Episode 4 of Game of Thrones. Look away if you haven't seen it.

Right. Here we go.

I did not read the series A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) until Season 5 of Game of Thrones. Fantasy is not my favorite genre. Besides these books by George RR Martin, the only fantasy novel I've read was The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.

I was drawn to the books because of the show. They're not easy to read. Besides being thick enough to actually hurt someone with it, I read them with zero ideas about the conventions of fantasy, the worldling and so on. I was curious and wanted to see. Also, Season 5 took too long. After a weekend where I binged on Seasons 1 to 4, I needed to know about the books.

The wait for Season 5 was reason one. Curiosity the second. The third was I have fallen in love with Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth. Yes. I was in love with them as a pair. They are my favorite characters.

Back then I had no idea what shipping meant, and what fandoms were. But I knew I had to see if the chemistry of Jaime and Brienne in the show, awesomely played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Gwendoline Christie, resulted from casting and adaptation or if the characters' interactions sizzled in the books. In other words, and this is vocabulary I picked up once I began wading deeper into the fandom, I was curious if it was canon.

And it was!

On their own and together, Jaime and Brienne were written with nuanced complexity. Jaime, especially, seemed sketched to cover the entire spectrum of gray and other unknown shades of it. Readers and show-onlys went from wishing this guy Seven Hells for throwing a ten-year-old child from a window to cheering him on as he found himself, often with great reluctance at first, on a path to redemption. Because Jaime, once separated from his family--the continuing disapproval of his father Tywin because he was nothing more than a glorified bodyguard and the quicksand relationship with twin sister Cersei--was finally free to be a man on his own. It did not matter that he was one of the greatest sword fighters, that he was a Lannister and Kingsguard. Robb Stark's army captured him because he was leading the Lannister armies. He lost his hand for thinking being a Lannister gave him protection and privilege. One-handed and probably still fevered, he jumped into the bear pit to rescue Brienne of Tarth. And before that, he saved her from being raped too.

As all that Jaime had been was gradually stripped away to reveal a man who murdered his king to protect the people yet one who loved his sister without guilt, Brienne was there in the picture of him being rendered anew. Honestly, because of Brienne, I swung to Team Jaime. Possibly with pom-poms too.

But after reading the books and seeing some episodes again, I began to wonder if David Benioff and D.B. Weiss hated the character.

While in the books Jaime said, "The things we do for love" WITH LOATHING, in the show he said the line with a smirk, that throwing a boy out the window was the natural consequence of protecting his affair with Cersei. Maybe Show!Jaime didn't see it as a consequence but something that simply had to be done but without smugness.

Okay, I thought. That was weird but the writers have to know right? They read the books.

When Jaime and Brienne finally have that bath in the show, and how it was adapted as faithfully as possible, I thought the show finally understood him. It was weird that Jaime returned to Cersei before the Purple Wedding but i thought of nothing of it.

Until THAT episode in Season 4.

In the books, the scene above should be when Jaime returned at King's Landing after being captured by Robb Stark and The Brave Companions. The reunion was from Jaime' point of view. Cersei's consent was clear:

"Hurry," she was whispering now, "quickly, quickly, now, do it now, do me now. Jaime Jaime Jaime." Her hands helped guide him. "Yes," Cersei said as he thrust, "my brother, sweet brother, yes, like that, yes, I have you, you’re home now, you're home now, you’re home." She kissed his ear and stroked his short bristly hair." 

In the show, she actually said, "It's not right!" a few times. Also, a few episodes prior to this, we saw Jaime complaining to her that he had been "back for weeks," and wanted to resume their affair. While in the books we saw two people falling in each other's arms after being apart for a long time, and needing each other desperately, in the show we saw rape. Though the claim by Benioff and Weiss was due to "bad editing/lighting" and that it was "unintentional," their refusal to actually address the issue and just re-edit and re-broadcast buried even more Jaime's redemption arc. As a viewer I forgave this mistake. Maybe next season?

Nope. It got worse.

When Jaime and Cersei made love by Joffrey' body in the books, this was the last time the twins would have sex. The books showed Jaime's gradual disillusionment with Cersei--he thought she drank too much, was tired of her scheming. Tyrion also told him about her affairs with other men. So when Jaime went to Riverrun to recover it for the Crown, he was not only the farthest from Cersei again, he was done. Just DONE. Her pleas for him to help her and promises of love end up tossed in the fire.

The show, rather than adapting this, simply diverged. Season 5 was as confused in what to do with Jaime as lots of viewers were. Season 6 saw Jaime and Cersei resume their affair before he left for the Riverlands. Returning to King's Landing in the finale, we saw the chilling look Jaime gave Cersei during her coronation.

Perhaps this was it. This would be when he falls out of love.

HA.

Season 7, until this weekend's episode, was THE WORST ADAPTATION OF JAIME. There. I'm saying it. THE WORST.

Why? It wasn't even the incest that pissed me off. Jaime, who slew the Mad King for wanting to torch King's Landing with wildfyre, did a dizzying 180 by ENABLING his sister, who murdered Queen Margaery, her former fiance, Kevan Lannister and other innocent members of the court by wildfire. Season 7 Jaime simply took Cersei at her word. Forget about Tommen, THEIR LAST SON. Who committed suicide as a result of his wife's murder. Forget about what really caused the Sept explosion. What mattered was creating a dynasty for "the last Lannisters who count."

Jaime stood by her side and in the queen' name, contributed in tearing further apart the Seven Kingdoms. No questions asked. LITERALLY no questions asked. Despite telling Cersei of the danger of her new position, he went on to rant about the lack of allies. That can be read as Jaime being practical but as the season progressed, it was proof that he would be at her side no matter what. No matter who had to be murdered. He DID say he would murder everyone until it was only the two of them left in the world. Alright.

LIoking back on past episodes, Cersei always succeeded in keeping Jaime at her side with promises of going public with their affair. In the books, Jaime pressed her to let people know he was her choice and she refused. In the Season 4 finale, she told him she told Tywin about them, resulting in passionate and this time consensual sex on a table in the White Sword Tower. In Episode 3 of Season 7, after Cersei fucked him to celebrate her victory over the Sand Snakes, we saw a loved up Jaime in the morning after.

This would be the happiest viewers had seen Jaime. Cersei, now really THE Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, would openly fuck him. The scandal reached as far as Eastwatch, with Tormund, wanting to clarify, asking which queen was discussed in a conversation. "The one with the dragons or the one who fucks her brother?"

After Daenerys and her Dothraki army burned the Lannister forces on their way back to King's Landing, a shaken and muddy Jaime returned to Cersei right away. And in the same episode, Cersei revealed she was pregnant again. This was happy news, indeed but Jaime needed to know one thing: who will Cersei acknowledge as the father.

"You."

Now I refuse to think Cersei had once again succeeded in manipulating him. I think she WAS pregnant. There's no way to fake joy like that. And yeah, though I don't ship them, I understood Jaime's happiness. Finally, he would get to be a real father.

Still, still, still. Season 7 Jaime really made no sense. There was none of Book Jaime here. None. What we saw was a guy who supported a tyrant willingly and was now going to be a real daddy. I hate it but that's really Season 7 Jaime. Even when he left Cersei, the reason was a headscratcher.

"I don't believe you," has got to be the worst break-up line because it's lame. Better if Jaime just looked at Cersei with puppy dog eyes and walked away. Really.

The beginning of Season 8 saw the writing of Jaime hitting the right beats. A different man, check. A man who honestly regrets what he did to Bran, check. A man who was no longer the golden lion and ready to fulfill a vow he made, check. Hearteyes at Brienne, check.

He knighted Brienne. BIG, FAT CHECKS.

In episode four, The Last of the Starks, Benioff and Weiss, probably tired from the glare of their computer screens, seemed to have just written the episode in bullet points. It became glaringly obvious they wanted the series over and done with. Fuck decent writing.

Jaime Lannister is not the only one who was badly written in the latest episode. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Qyburn's ballista and Euron apparently a sharp-shooter. We have no idea how Missandei was captured. That drinking game with Jaime, Brienne, Podrick and Tyrion was awkward and misogynistic--seriously, why shame Brienne for being a virgin?

And Sansa! Sansa basically saying if she had not been raped and abused, she wouldn't be in the position she is now! Who on earth says anything like that? Answer: no one. And I don't mean Arya.

And Missandei. The ONE WOMAN OF COLOR in a blindingly white show is chained and beheaded!

Then Jaime. Oh, Jaime.

There are no happy endings in Game of Thrones. Ned Starks gets beheaded. Jon Snow gets knifed. Sansa is raped. Catelyn, Robb and Talisa get butchered. Just when victory is within reach, characters are punished so cruelly it's inhuman.

But it doesn't mean crappy writing. At fifteen million dollars an episode this season, I expect writing that reflects intelligence. Who cares about CGI wolves and dragons when the writing is shit?

Now it's no longer a question if David Benioff and D.B. Weiss hate Jaime. THEY DO. Everyone else was buffed up or given meat. They couldn't even spare Jaime Lannister a decent-sized bone.

I don't blame Jaime for leaving Brienne. Hear me out.

After Brienne and Sansa tell him the latest developments in King's Landing with regard to Cersei, we see Jaime shocked and even horrified. The next scene, he's in the chambers with Brienne contemplating what to do. And this is where the writing becomes really shitty:

1. He left her without saying goodbye.

2. He LEFT Brienne with her thinking he did it for Cersei.

What was the point of according her the respect and honor of being a knight--done by his own hand? What was the point of telling her he was no longer the fighter he was? Where was the respect when he was going to leave her as a regrettable one night stand? (But Winterfell to King's Landing is a month by land so I assume they've been banging for that long)

Nothing, it's just illogical shit.

Had the writers made just a bit more effort, Jaime Lannister should have been shown experiencing some happiness with Brienne, rather than Tyrion telling the viewers about it. We don't see it. We're just told and have to take their word for it. Jaime could have benefitted too in leaving Brienne in the NEXT episode. Why? It increases the stakes. Just one scene showing Jaime happy, just one, and of him ACTUALLY talking to Brienne about having to leave instead of being found out, and the episode probably won't be as crappy. I don't mind Brienne begging and crying, heartbreaking as that scene is. What I mind is Jaime never being shown what he stands to lose if he leaves Winterfell. Olenna Tyrell, before he he grants her the mercy of taking poison, had warned him it will be too late for him. She's right.

I believe he goes to King's Landing because of the guilt that he began a war to protect Cersei. When he does things for Cersei, the consequences are horrible and far-reaching. Easy to call him dumb and he is. But let's not forget that he charged at Daenerys and Drogon with just a spear thinking to end it all. A spear against a fire-breathing dragon. Like, what are the odds, right?

I'm not going to say anything more about The Bang That Was Promised And Sucked Donkey Balls. Enough has been said, enough hearts have been broken. We KNOW the world of Game of Thrones is dark and bitter and almost without hope. We really do. But as fans of the books and the show, FANS WHO MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR THE SERIES BE RENEWED AND HBO TO INCREASE THE BUDGET EVERY SEASON, all we ask for is good writing. We get that without actual material from George the writing is challenging. WE REALLY DO.

But is it too much to ask for the writers to set aside their hatred for one of the best characters in the series and understand him? Give him the material he deserves in the show? There is none of the Book Jaime trying so hard to be honorable. None. Instead what we've been given, since the first episode, is a train wreck of an adaptation that has now been confirmed as a character assassination.

It's not dragonfyre that has killed Jaime but writing that is careless, hurried and just plain awful. In Benioff and Weiss' determination and delusion in finishing the TV series on a high note, Jaime Lannister has been left with barely a whimper.

*Previously titled, "When Adaptations Assassinate A Character."