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ginmo · 4 years

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How do you think the Bran and Jaime’s meeting will go in the books? I’ve read theories guessing he might end up as King Bran’s Hand, meta where the writers want him to become a mentor or father figure to the Starks in a full circle of his redemption arc, while others don’t want or think he should be involved with the Starks long-term either because of his and his family’s sins against the Starks or because they view his arc as reclamation rather than redemption or atonement. 1/2

This is what GRRM said about Bran and exploring time.

“It's an obscenity to go into somebody's mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor's simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. The explanation of Bran's powers, the whole questions of time and causality - can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book, but it's harder to explain in a show.” - Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

Hodor’s name reveal is neat and all, but Bran’s power to manipulate the past doesn't exist just so we can randomly learn Hodor’s pointless name origin. That would be ridiculous unless the scene was used to introduce that ability. Hodor’s name reveal is important to the narrative, and I believe its purpose is to set up a much bigger event/reveal involved around Bran interfering with the past, not just observing it. I’m pretty sure GRRM was hint-hinting to D&D about this, which is why he told them about the random ass Hodor scene that was already written, thinking it would be obvious what that means for the overall plot and letting them run with it but………………..

Because of this, I think it’s possible Bran brought himself to where he is.

IF Bran isn’t involved in The Push, then he could have been involved with Jaime killing the Mad King. I kinda like the idea of Bran playing into Aerys’ madness, causing him to stock up on wildfire around the city, because then the wildfire would be an essential future plot element for a bigger purpose towards the end of the series and it would be a question of time, “a river you can only sail one way, or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop it,” but for the entire series. (And, as someone with a passion in astrophysics, I’m a sucker for discussions around time. BUTTHAT’SJUSTME)

Do I totally subscribe to this theory? Eh. I’m still not convinced Bran is King of All of Westeros for reasons, but I’m open-minded. I DO think Jaime is surviving the series, for reasonsssss, so I’m putting that disclaimer out there right now. I will never claim with absolute confidence that he is surviving though because, I mean, nobody fucking knows, and there’s an argument for death. I’m just going off of narrative clues that I perceive to be clues, and taking other character arcs into consideration. After literally drawing up a table because I’m weird, the column for Survive has more evidence and justification than the column for Dies, so that’s why I lean the way I lean. SO with that being said, I think it’s possible he has more of a political future.

IF this is what GRRM is writing, Jaime would still be responsible for pushing him, of course, but future Bran would want to be pushed. He'd be setting everything in motion to create the butterfly effect that makes it happen.

Even if that isn’t what GRRM had intended with exploring time, it’s highly likely Bran’s character development is taking him down a path of apathy over it, meaning he wouldn’t be needing Jaime to do something for the purpose of redemption for him.

Speaking of Redemption…

-deep breath-

I’m going to go off on this a bit because it IS relevant, I swear.

“Limits of redemption” is probably the biggest wtf interpretation fandom has when it comes to what GRRM actually said. I’ll try not to go off on it too much here but -

Interviewer: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

GRRM: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? [...] I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then? [x]

I bolded “we” from the interviewer, because it gives context to GRRM’s answer with “we” being the readers, not the characters or Jaime himself. (I think there’s another interview where he says “limits of redemption” but it’s in the same context. I could be wrong but I SWEAR I heard it. Anyway…)

“I kind of tried to ask, ‘do you think he’s changed?’ to get him to talk about Jaime’s redemption arc, so he said something like he wanted to explore the concept of forgiveness and whether it’s possible to be forgiven for doing such horrible things, and that his goal was to ask the question, not give an answer.” [x]

Fandom thinks this is the characters giving Jaime forgiveness, and maybe there will be a small element of that in the books, but the question is for the readers. No, Jaime is not actively seeking redemption from people. His redemption is for himself, through living his best life, by rediscovering the person he used to be. Yes He Will Be Redeemed and No He Will Fail assume redemption is some arbitrary checklist determined by One Big Act, and they’re answers to a question GRRM doesn’t want to give an answer to.

The purpose of Jaime’s POVs is to ask the readers, and the most obvious moment of this was the bath scene. GRRM smacks us over the head with the Aerys confession, and then as we’re introduced to more and more of his POV chapters, he slowly chips away at the Jaime illusion that was intentionally established the moment he pushed one of the perceived child protagonists out of a window. It’s brilliant, and I’m sorry GRRM that a large chunk of your fandom is too dense to get it. How frustrating lol. I’ll be insulted for him. (I’m legit wondering if his recent angsty tweets about grey and redemption about real life stem from a concern that his fandom won’t understand the point of the series.)

To give you an idea of where these people are coming from, at least one BNF idiot on Twitter believes redemption hasn’t been explored with Jaime yet.

But uh…

GRRM mentioned his intent is to “explore redemption” after delivering Jaime POVs, because... it’s... not a spoiler… he’s already exploring redemption, because the question is being asked TO US. We were supposed to have an “oh shit” moment, realizing this is more complex than the surface level, biased perspective we were delivered at the beginning of the story. “Maybe Westeros and my protagonist have it wrong.” -cough- the people in the village in BatB -cough-

No matter how much fandom likes to pretend they love GRRM for pushing the boundaries of fantasy, they secretly fucking hate it. They love to be comfortable, dude. That’s why they read this series as if it’s a clear cut Good vs. Evil, because a) ego and b) that’s easy. If GRRM was writing Jaime as doing everything with ill intent then…. his… question isn’t being asked. They think everything he does right now is selfish and Bad, so they’re waiting. They want it spoon fed to them. They want classic fantasy. They want Starks = Good, Lannisters = Bad.

But… if the author sees Jaime’s actions as grey and complex, enough to ask the question to the readers if he’s redeemed in their eyes or not, then he’s not going to write an endgame that punishes the character for narrative payoff, because he doesn’t see his actions as “sins” or “crimes” in the same way that these people are. Once upon a time, a person on tumblr reblogged one of my posts and said that Jaime will rape Cersei before he kills himself and that will be his endgame. But GRRM doesn’t view Jaime as a rapist, so he’s not going to write Jaime as a rapist. I’m bringing that up, because it’s the same phenomenon. People can ignore authorial intent all they want, but NOT when it comes to predicting narrative trajectory. The general fandom is terrible at that lol.

The exploration of redemption for Jaime comes in the form of confronting his disillusioned self and everything attached to it. Before someone thinks, “lolllll he isn’t disillusioned”

“he actually was a very idealistic young man who was disillusioned by life” [x]

Jaime’s redemption is the path of returning to that idealistic man for himself. It’s by feeling ashamed of the things he’s done to hide his love for Cersei. It’s by gaining independence and detaching from the toxic relationship that caused a mess outside of them. It’s by wanting to be like the knights he admired in his youth, and like the woman warrior that inspired him.

So when I think about narrative payoff for Jaime, I don’t see it framed as him being “punished” for actions viewed as “crimes,” when GRRM clearly established those “crimes” as complicated and grey with a character already going through some positive development, and especially when the characters judging are written to be flawed as well.

On the other side, having him be “punished” by succumbing to hatred and anger is for sure giving an answer (this just… -sits on hands- don’t even get me started on THIS fucking hot take). That answer would be a clear, solid, “No, no matter how hard he tries to turn his life around, he can’t be redeemed, because he’s a hateful, angry, fucked up person.” I’ve legit seen people think “limits of redemption” is a boundary of redemption drawn in the sand that Jaime is walking towards but he won’t be able to cross it. I-.........................

And what’s even the point of his handchop if scenario number 2 happens?

“And Jaime, losing a hand, losing the very thing he defined himself on is crucial to where I think I want to go with the character. And he questions what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost that.” - GRRM [x]

(I’m going to put this quote in every post sorry not sorry)

So he’s going to take Jaime on this big identity journey just for him to be like “lol nah he isn’t that” …?? That makes the loss of his hand meaningless, not “crucial.” Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand if he’s bringing him back to the beginning? Is it really crucial for him to lose his hand to make himself realize he’s hateful and a failure and murder Cersei and then himself? No. He could have still met Brienne and been inspired by her knightly ways, attempted to live a better life, found out about Cersei’s affairs, etc. He doesn’t need to lose his hand to reach a point of fucking murder/suicide lmao fuck (not saying he’ll do that but I KNOW people are thinking it).

The loss of his hand is “crucial,” because GRRM has bigger endgame plans for him in the form of politics, and the journey to believably get there requires the forced loss of his warrior identity and everything that the hand symbolized.

AS FOR THE ACTUAL HAND THEORY...

Even though I’m undecided on it, I CAN see it IF Bran is King. I get it. Jaime’s missing his right Hand, he becomes the Hand to the kid he pushed out the window. Hardy har har. I understand how that would be pleasing.

And we all know GRRM said something about how the best ones for power are the ones who don’t want it…

And… this suspicious scene at the very beginning of the series…

“You should be the Hand.”

“Gods forbid,” a man’s voice replied lazily. “It’s not an honor I’d want. There’s far too much work involved.”

Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. -AGOT

BUT IF that happens, it wouldn’t be there as some sort of #atonement #forredemption. It would be there because of Jaime’s growth as a character after developing into a political player, after asking himself, “what do you make of yourself if you’ve lost [the swordhand]?” He’s no longer the warrior he once was. He dislikes any sort of political position, because he feels most alive with a sword in his hand. But that was Warrior Jaime, and the point of “what do you make of yourself after you’ve lost that” is Jaime going down a different path after discovering that Warrior Jaime has died. I mean, he’d never be actively seeking power and thinking it’s the best career ever, like he’d probably be all -sighhhhhhh- about it, but he’d be doing the responsible thing and what’s necessary. He’d make himself useful in a new way.

“The Warrior had been Jaime’s god since he was old enough to hold a sword. Other men might be fathers, sons, husbands, but never Jaime Lannister, whose sword was as golden as his hair. He was a warrior, and that was all he would ever be.” - AFFC (Do I really need to make a post about how GRRM foreshadows? Mr. Bran: “I never fall”...?)

Jaime losing his hand was the narrative consequence for The Push, making all of his development post handchop -ALL OF HIS POVS- the redemption theme. It was the hand that pushed Bran, fucked his twin, killed his king, swung the sword against fandom’s Precious Protagonists…

“You ought to be pleased. I’ve lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I’d slide between my sister’s thighs to make her wet.” - AFFC

So if Jaime becomes his Hand, it would be the two characters meeting in the middle, not Jaime groveling at his feet, begging for forgiveness, framed as a punishment for sins - “sins” that fandom views as “sins” that need narrative payoff, because they don’t understand intent.

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