Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

doesaxlhaveajack t1_ixj42z6 wrote

Reply to comment by Podo13 in Wilko Johnson, Legendary Guitarist and Actor Who Played Ser Ilyn Payne in ‘Game of Thrones’, Dies at 75 by MarvelsGrantMan136

I get all of that in the immediate aftermath. What beggars belief is that, in the intervening 15 years, no one seems to have asked Jaime why he did it. There were other people in the room. Aerys and the Targaryens in general had a reputation for being crazy and violent. It’s a bit of backstory meant to set up rivalries and character growth, but it depends on characters like Ned and Varys just not being very curious, or forgetting to ask easy questions.

5

Podo13 t1_ixj6357 wrote

I think there was also a belief that he did it at Tywin's request. And nobody was going to fuck with Tywin, so they kept their mouth's shut.

Brienne was the first person he told and in reality he was pretty vague about it all. He gave some possible facts, but didn't really go far into what he was actually feeling.

But, honestly, at his core, Jaime is an ultra narcissist who knows he killed Aerys out of self-preservation and leaving out some of the true bits kept people talking about him and paying attention to him. Jamie didn't care about glory. He enjoyed fighting and killing, and if he had to be known as the Kingslayer to keep doing those things, so be it. Which I think Ned subconsciously knew and it's why he always looked down on him more than just calling him a, derogatory name.

7

doesaxlhaveajack t1_ixj9uzi wrote

I guess I’m taking a weird overarching view of it, because a whole throughline of Dany’s arc is the question whether people want the Targaryens back, and the history in Fire and Blood/HOTD shows that they were most likely glad to be rid of them, so assuming a bit of public sentiment there…it just doesn’t track that Jaime has this reputation. I mean, Ned fought on the other side to depose Aerys. Did he think Aerys would survive that? The a-ha of honor is silly and it’s a false way to trigger an “all sides are bad” baseline when, again, it got the results Ned wanted anyway.

Then again, Ned is the buffoon who chose certain death when he still had the option of going to the wall to chill with his brother and the kid he loved as a son. He could have met Tormund. Honor and morals/ethics aren’t the same thing, Ned.

1

Podo13 t1_ixjhoxg wrote

Well, remember, Jaime wasn't executed or banished or really punished in any way.

He was still a Kingsguard to Ned's best friend after killing the previous King, in by far the least noble of ways in their eyes, was an enormously pompous asshole from a family that was untouchable because of their wealth, and there were the obvious rumors that he was banging Cersei that pretty much everybody knew about.

Ned hated every fiber of Jamie's being, which led fed into his own faults as a human, and eventually led to his death.

Ned wanted Jaime to admit he killed the King just so he wouldn't die. But until Jaime did that, which he never would, all Ned could do was be an ultra-condescending asshole to a guy who was a huge, untouchable, prick.

3

doesaxlhaveajack t1_ixjmw6e wrote

I mean, I guess. I’m just avoiding my life responsibilities and kind of hovering around the idea that GRRM might have originally had other plans for Jaime that don’t bear out after other plot changes. D&D were seemingly perfectly content to let Nikolaj’s resemblance to Sawyer/Josh Holloway cue us into a bad boy redemption arc that wasn’t actually present in the script. (Nikolaj was perfectly cast as Jaime, but we all know that D&D never saw a shortcut they didn’t take.) You look at Jaime’s first appearance and you already know he’s an outward asshole with a tragic backstory and secret sensitive side. People who only watched the show have no idea that Jaime was talented, and it’s easy to lose track of the fact that he’s a contemporary to Ned and not Jon (though some of that is due to us seeing Charles Dance’s Tywin as Ned’s peer). TLDR I think Jaime is being kept around and strung along because he’s one of the few living nobles who was in KL and actually knows how Robert’s Rebellion played out.

2