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janiedean · 8 months ago

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I have a few problems with Brienne's character.

1. Shouldn't she be bitter to world for someone who went through what she went through like Tyrion? Isn't it boring this way?

2. Brienne believes in rules. Why does she support Renly? She should have supported Joffrey first because she didn't know about incest. She should have supported Stannis after she learned incest.

3. If she doesn't care about the rules, why is she angry at Jaime for killing Aerys? She says he shouldn't have killed him even though Aerys was cruel. She never says I don't think you killed Aerys for the right reasons, she just says you shouldn't have.

weeell

1 she could... and most people would have been, but if she became then that she'd be sandor or tyrion or jaime, not *brienne* - like the entire point of her character is that she manages to *not* be bitter and cynical even if a bunch of shit happened to her and that *even* after she gets through her whole affc ordeal which does give her even more of a wake up call when it comes to how bad things are around she still doesn't become cynical or bitter and she still believes in her vows, which is why brienne is gonna eventually become the best knight in the realm™️ recognized by everyone and not just by the readers, because she's the only one who embodies all the knightly virtues AND lives by them AND even if she went through experiences that could and might have turned her cynical and bitter that's not gonna be what's in store for her

and btw my pet theory that she's gonna kill lady stoneheart for jaime in front of him is also because I think it's fundamental that a jaime who's back on his track to be honorable and found some peace can coach her through what happens when you kill your liege lord who went insane and might help her not turn out the way he did, more on that in answers two and three

2 she doesn't believe in *rules* though, she believes in honour and the knightly code and she's also in love with renly - like, the thing is: renly is the only person who treated her decently in her eyes (for her standards which is BAD - like again I love my girl but she was ready to die for him because he danced with her and didn't tell her she was ugly to her face which is a very fucking low standard), he's obviously her type, she fell in love with him, she swore herself to him and wanted to be in his guard, so unless renly did something like exceedingly HORRIBLE or dishonorable or something nothing was stopping her from siding with him - also when it comes to current westeros kingship..... I mean maybe but if you want to split hairs then the baratheons in themselves could have been seen as them being usurpers if one thought targaryens had the right of it. also if renly visited tarth and renly has storm's end technically she's already sort of sworn to him or anyway more in his orbit (he went to visit tarth for the political trip not stannis), also like the incest thing was something *stannis* said to corroborate his claim but it's not like cersei or anyone else ever owned up to it so she could care about it or not, but tldr if there's a crown crisis and people secede knights are free to side with whoever they think has the best claim. now I don't think renly had the best claim and as everyone and their walls know I'm everything but renly-friendly or anything like that (like I frankly dislike canon renly a lot for various reasons tho I think he could be a decent person in modern au) and that I think he should have sucked it up and supported stannis... but to her if she's not sworn to stannis first, if renly does his thing and if she loves him then nothing stops her from siding with him without it being a problem for her. like she wants to be a knight following a honor code and choosing a lord/lady/whatever to serve and then doing it to the bitter end is also that. she happened to pick renly but idt that's like anything that is particularly not coherent given the situation.

3 the problem with jaime killing aerys isn't the *rules*, it's the *vows*. now in general so it's out of the way: I was one of those people who was ride or die for jaime from the second he showed up in story and I already had a feeling from the get-go that whichever reason he had for killing aerys he most likely had done everyone a favor even without knowing the specifics, but like... no one knows why jaime did it and the fact that everyone thinks he has shit for honor because he's a knight and killed his liege he swore a vow to and he has zero patience to correct them when he actually did it for a very good reason is half of the reason why everyone has an unwarranted bad opinion of him and why the only person who actually likes him is tyrion bc he knows he's a decent person but no one else got as far as noticing it. now we can discuss to hell and back why jaime just went like fuck that who gives a shit and then decides maybe not but that's not the point.

the point is that a) the way you put that question doesn't take into account a lot of things which I'm getting into in a second, b) that literally no one knows jaime as a person beyond tyrion also bc he doesn't gaf to let others close beyond cers, so like for everyone in the realm that's the guy who killed his king when the ultimate knightly oath is serving your king. now not going into the fact that grrm is showing that knighthood is a rotten institution etc, from brienne's pov when she meets him

a) she's ugly, she doesn't think she has a chance to do anything except dying young while fighting and have ballads written about her while she tries being a knight a thing she knows she's good at and put all her chips on because she has literally nothing else going for herself

b) she's a woman so no one takes her seriously even when she's obviously good/better than 99.9% of her peers and it doesn't happen even after she wins a goddamned kingsguard spot after beating people who bet about who was gonna take her virginity first and the only thing she wanted was being in the kingsguard of a man she loved that she hoped to see on the throne

c) meanwhile jaime has everything from her pov - the name, the looks, the skill (because like everyone talks shit abt him but no one doubts he's good at his trade), got accepted into the kingsguard at *fifteeen*, could have had any woman he wanted had he chosen to not be a knight, while being a knight he's sworn into the highest possible position he could reach in westeros in that role like idk how to put it on paper if you wanna be recognized as a bonafide true knight ™️ no one would ever laugh about being in the KG is what makes it... and what does he do he kills his king and is absolutely unapologetic about it and doing the ultimate wrong thing a knight should never do and he gets to stay in the KG anyway when according to outside view he should have been kicked out while she had to eat dirt to get where she was and no one took her seriously anyway

d) she's also at almost her most naive and she still thinks the world works like vows so she doesn't even consider the fact that he might actually have had a reason to do it, so when

She says he shouldn't have killed him even though Aerys was cruel. She never says I don't think you killed Aerys for the right reasons, she just says you shouldn't have.

... yeah she says she shouldn't have killed him because that = spitting on an institution she thinks is the highest honor to be in (which ofc isn't true but other problem entirely) and it doesn't matter what reasons he might have had to do it, bc at that point she presumes that if he had any he'd have said back in the day and since he never bothered to do that then it doesn't matter. he shouldn't have because he's an anointed knight and it's dishonorable to kill your liege, end of story...

but there's the fallacy with your question because yeah... that happens in the beginning of asos before they get their trauma bonding road trip. if you read asos carefully she starts calling him ser or by his first name only without insults or the kingslayer the second he saves her from being raped the first time, she takes care of him at his worst, he ends up not having any fucks to give anymore about pretending he doesn't care about aerys and after they come through almost dying together and end up in the bath she's ready to hear why it happened and he's ready to share it for the first time period. he does it with her, not with anyone else, and on the spot she probably can't process it but after *that* she basically puts him back on his feet and takes care of him and gets in the way anytime someone else wants to get close before they meet roose, after he saves her from the bear pit she stops calling him names or anything but ser, when they meet and he gives her oathkeeper she tells him the white cloak becomes you so she obviously changed her mind... and in her affc chapters when people talk shit about jaime and his oathbreaking she stands up and leaves the premises because she can't bear to hear it and she tries to justify him to lady stoneheart (good luck) and she doesn't think he's wrong for that anymore. like yeah she doesn't go and tell him straight after he shares his story but she has no reason to because he knows she knows and they trusted each other at that point and when we get into her head she only thinks good of him and it's obvious she changed her mind which again... is another point I never managed to meta about even if I wanted to back in the day but like

tldr

if you notice when you read his pov and then hers and you see how they interact with each other he sounds way younger than his actual age (because he emotionally got stuck at when he killed aerys and only started moving on since he gets chapters) while brienne reads way older than she is because she got through enough shit even if she's barely nineteen that it makes sense she would have matured way faster, but when it comes to their ideals he is way more cynical and jaded because he got through ALL that crap at seventeen and he saw that things suck and he just went like fuck it while she is all idealistic and her-actual-age about it because of what I said in 1 - other than being younger and not having had ptsd level military trauma at his age she is also set apart because she's that devoted to being a knight in a way that reminds him of himself when he was young... so after they get past their crap he remembers wanting to be like her back in the day and tries to get there again and get back his honor while she becomes more mature and less naive and realizes the world isn't black and white so they actually hone each others' sharp edges out in that sense and they get better/learn from each other and that's another thing that's compelling about them, but like if you gotta get there then it makes sense he starts thinking she's a naive idiot who's gonna get jaded the second she finds out how the world works and then he's shocked when she doesn't and she thinks he's a pos who spat on the thing she wants most in the world and she can't have because people don't take her seriously and then she realizes he's actually not like that at all and that he did it for the most noble reason to the point she's willing to die for him later.

like again you can find those things not coherent or whatnot or you can just not vibe with brienne but question 3 hinges just on the beginning of their relationship and doesn't take into account the fact that she misjudges him harshly, openly admits it and regrets it and that post road trip and his hand loss it's obvious she only thinks good of him, question 1... well, yeah, there's that person in the books and it's sandor (and jaime too), if she were the same now she wouldn't be primed to become the new galahad now wouldn't she, and question 2 I answered but like again I still think following renly is the only stupid thing brienne ever did but didn't all teenagers in love at 16-17 do something exceedingly dumb and stupid and then grow up? because that was how old she was when they met (if not 15 actually) and it still didn't clash with the knightly code given she wanted to give him fealty.

anyway for extra clarity wrt my thoughts on most of this stuff that I've given through the years: why brienne in the kg makes no sense, why brienne gaf about renly post affc is preposterous and why the show version killing stannis made no sense (delved into the renly aspect), why brienne's pov is important and why she's primed to be best knight in westeros ™️, jaime's rship with both b. and c. and how it's all courtly love deconstruction which went into the knightly stuff which i couldn't possibly recap rn *flies away*

#brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne #janie replies #Anonymous #janie writes meta #otp: i dreamed of you #otp: i only rescue maidens #het ship of my heart #a song of ice and fire #ch: brienne of tarth #ch: jaime lannister #anti cersei lannister #anti-lannincest #anti lannicest #only slightly less toxic than chernobyl's ruins #the anti jc tag is just to be sure sorry i mentally can't afford drama rn

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