#i poss should have made other life choices than wrangling my thoughts at 3am but here we are and i'm all in!

[nossbean]

Please, do share your feelings about Jaime and Myrcella.

So first things first: thank you so much for this ask!! I do indeed have many feelings about Jaime and Myrcella, and appreciate the question a lot! I’ve also been sitting on it for a small eternity as I’ve tried to gather my thoughts into something approaching coherency as opposed to just the rainbow-heart-shaped-bubbles with birdsong accompaniment that tend to fill my brain when I think about the possibilities, and I’m sorry for the long delay! I also apologise because i’m not sure the long delay actually resulted in a particularly satisfying (uh, or coherent!) answer 😬🤦🏻‍♀️ perhaps in part because this is something I think I might be better at exploring in fic -- part of the reason Myrcella is not fridged in possess is so I can explore some of this down the line, for instance! But giving it my best shot here, I’d say that I am intrigued and taken first with Jaime’s feelings about parenthood, and in conjunction, with the focus of those parental feelings being centred on Myrcella. A few reasons for that, which I ramble about in a sec, but one of the first things that just constantly lingers in my mind is that description of Myrcella as sweet, unlike her mother. It always struck me because of course: it isn’t a mystery where the sweetness comes from, she is indeed unlike her mother, and yet certainly much like her father. At least in that regard. (I’d argue there’s reason to think her similarly clever and observant -- that latter perhaps also a result of abuse though -- and brave, again all very much like Jaime.) That Jaime and Myrcella don’t know this is heart-wrenching. The possibility they might come to learn it though... 🥺

I also just really love and appreciate good portrayals of fathers-with-daughters. So much media centres on sons (and indeed, currently Jaime’s arc in ASOIAF is going that way, with Jaime’s reflections on/plans for Tommen; with Myrcella being returned to KL though, I guess we’ll see...?) that it’s a breath of fresh air when there is a healthy portrayal of a father-daughter relationship, ie when it doesn’t centre on that trope of, “Dad is deeply, reprehensibly paternalistic via supposedly protective measures about his daughter, particularly as pertains to her interest in boys (if she has one).” I tend to think Jaime would have protective impulses, but also his feelings about women’s rights (I’ll call them, though ofc in canon this term... doesn’t apply) would stand to counter them: also perhaps particularly his sense that if given guardianship over Myrcella, he’d not want to replicate the way Cersei was treated by their father, never mind how his perspectives will have changed with Brienne in his life. I don’t think it’s a stretch that Jaime’s protective impulses would be turned outward, as opposed to directed at Myrcella’s behaviour, for instance.

In the book canon world where Myrcella knows he is her father in the same way show!Myrcella did, I’d be really interested in how that would play out as well, and whether book!Myrcella would be similarly happy about it. Undoubtedly Jaime is... I mean, the degree to which he’s better than Robert needs no comment. But that doesn’t mean she’d be thrilled, given the rest of the context, and I think getting to see how she feels about it, messy situation and all, and how they work together to have a relationship would be... well, I want to see it...! I also wonder how much her injury and the loss of Arys Oakheart might impact how quickly she might cleave again to her uncle/father, given the chance of that safe harbour. I personally think AFFC demonstrated that many vulnerable folx recognize Jaime for the protector he is, and I guess the potential complexity of that dynamic, knowing how much love is possible there but how uphill a road it is, gets me.

I’d be lying if I didn’t also say that I’d love to read Myrcella being taken in by Pia, though I reckon that is purely the purview of fanfic. And OF COURSE, whatever relationship Myrcella might have with Brienne is something I’d fucking love to see.

I guess the last thought I have about why I have many feelings about these two kind of carries on from that last, which is the sense that in the book!canon world, they could possibly help one another heal and recover. The Lannister family legacy is trauma, and here is one of a handful of opportunities in Jaime’s arc, and perhaps the only opportunity in Myrcella’s, to break that pattern and forge something new, and better, and with actual love at the centre of it. <3