Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 81 - ASOS Jaime II

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

ASOIAF Episode 81 - ASOS Jaime II The ravaged Riverlands sustain the underlying heart in Jaime's arc, and Brienne attempts to keep him grounded (except for when he gets on the horse). --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com    Lo's Thread: https://twitter.com/igelkottenskamp/status/1225798066525130752 Pepper's link on birth place from Jacob and Esau discussion: https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-does-the-torah-describe-babies-born-hands-first

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 81, A Storm of Swords, Jamie 2. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as Liza Narver on Twitter, Tumblr, or LizaNarverGold.com. And I am another one of your hosts, Aliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, on the Maester Monthly Podcast, maybe as Arithmetric over on Twitter. Or as an abandoner. An abandoner. The abandoner of podcasts. A turn cloak. Orphaned. Motherless.

Damned. That's you. Eliana, you're leaving us for a couple weeks. Yes. It's just a brief amount of time to be honest. It's a fortnight. I feel pretty distraught about it. More or less. It's a fortnight. A fortnight. Yeah. You're gonna be out of

office. Out of office for a couple weeks. But we have one more Jamie episode until you are out of office that's gonna come out next week. That's Jamie 3. Indeed. And I'm excited for this one. A, first of all,

it's the sexiest Jamie chapter. It is. There's a sword fight. I'm also excited because someone that I greatly admire is coming onto the podcast. And... Fangirl Jean is joining us next week for Jamie 3.

Yes. You might know her from her writing, you might know her from her Twitter account where she posts a lot of really great thoughts and a lot of really awesome Twitter threads that break down a lot of interesting themes on on a bunch of different series. I've loved her takes on the song of ice and fire and i think she always comes at it from a really interesting angle and so i was really excited that she said yes to being our guest for jamie three yeah and i'm i definitely really like her jamie and brianne takes so having her on for this chapter is absolutely perfect i couldn't have picked a better person. She has a lot of fun tweets of like Jamie and Brienne AU's

alternate universe scenarios. Yeah, we'll have to pick a couple of our favorite ones next week. Well, speaking of betrayal, our Patreon episode this month is going to be something a little different. Wow, you really

made it like that. That is a thing that you actually did just now. It's a thing that you're doing when you leave us for two weeks, Eliana. Betraying us. But I will be betraying you guys because I am cheating on Eliana for our Patreon episode. So many odes, they make you swear and swear. This is a month that we are going to be doing Philip Pullman's series, the His Dark

Materials series, but we are going to be doing an episode on The Secret Commonwealth, which is actually a book of dust. Now, some of you who are following both of these podcasts, you might be sitting there going, wait a second, Eliana hasn't finished La Belle Sauvage.

She pledged to Chloe that she would finish it by February 14th. Valentine's Day. Well, if you're listening to this, it's likely February 14th released for the public. Very romantic. So Eliana will have read it by now. But Eliana will not be here to be on this Patreon episode. So we are going to have a different Girl Gone Canon join us. here to be on this patreon episode so we are going to have a different girl gone canon join us we're going to have fay from the podcast her dark materials on to chat with us and she too

pledged to chloe that she will finish the second book of dust the secret commonwealth by the time we record so i'm excited about that yes i thought that was that was a really fun way for us to do this i was like yes chloe, Chloe, this is going to be great. I have really enjoyed Her Dark Materials. If you like the way that Chloe and I approach the series and our chemistry, I highly recommend you check out Her Dark Materials. They're super fun. Yeah, they are kind of like alternate UK versions of us, right? yeah they are kind of like alternate uk versions of us right cultural exchange is what we're happening here oh i get it i get it i'm leaving and we're getting a foreign exchange right and since you will be gone leaving us like the orphans that we are uh this episode will actually also be going live we're gonna share it for the public on March 6th to fill the gaps between the Jamie episodes

since we will have a week off from Jamie, which I know it's hard. I like doing these episodes, but I think a week off will be good for us to resonate on what we've learned. It will. Plus there's going to be some serious sexual energy

in the next episode, so I think it's going to be good for us to just think about what we've done. Yeah, everyone can take a cold shower for two weeks. Especially Jamie. Yes. And eventually, you know, eventually one day he's going to take a bath. It's going to be great. A lot of things are going to happen during that bath, but we're not

there yet. Okay. Something really exciting we told you guys we had a lot to get through so much so much this is almost it before we get to some awesome emails and of course our lightning round but first we're here to talk about a giveaway that's right a girls gone canon giveaway thank you to a very generous benefactor who wants to remain anonymous. It's a real Mopatis. It's a real Mopatis. We are giving away one weekend pass Thursday through Sunday to Ice and Fire Con in Mount Sterling, Ohio this year.

The convention is April 23rd to April 26th. It is in a state park about 30 minutes outside of Columbus. With this one weekend pass, we will also be giving away some exclusive Girls Gone Canon merchandise and an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage of your choosing from the both of us at the convention itself. This does not include lodging, transportation, or food fees. You guys got to front that part of the deal. But we are giving away a mini package. Yes, you're giving away a free golden ticket.

And again, gets you in the doors. Yes, again, thank you, Illyrio, for your generous involvement sponsoring our campaign. Are we Fagon? Unsure. We? I don't know.

I think I'm Roland Duckfield. Aw, you what? Does that make me A-gon? Anyways. Unsure. Eliana, how are they gonna win this giveaway? Send us an email at girlsgoncanon at gmail.com Alright, that's C-A-N-O-N

If your email doesn't go through, please let us know. We will help you out. As the subject line, write favorite POV and then put the name of your favorite POV, right? So your subject line should say F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E space POV. Maybe space, maybe a colon, maybe a dash, whatever punctuation, you know, makes you happy. I think I just want to know, like, you know, it'll be interesting to know what kind of person people are. How do they do this? Right. And then put your favorite POV there. Yeah. So mine would be favorite POV brand.

Really? Or favorite POV Sansa. Really? Yes. And then tell us also, importantly, not only do you make that your subject line, we would like for you to tell us why that's your favorite POV in the body of the email. We would like for

you to sign it. Just so you know, part of the terms of entry are that at some point, if you were to win the giveaway, we will need your first and last name because that's how you purchase a ticket. But otherwise, we are going to randomly select a winner. So don't worry about being too eloquent. All right, we are going to read these, but how well you write, how well you make your case for what is your favorite POV

will not, in fact, impact your chances of winning. The only thing that will impact your chances of winning are drinking, like, I don't know, Felix Felicis or whatever other good luck charm or ritual that you end up performing. No glass candles, guys. No hacking whatever random number generator we end up landing upon. We are taking submissions until March 1st, 2020, so we are going to let you guys know the winner when Eliana returns home to the podcast on Friday 3-13 with Jamie 4.

March 13th, Friday the 13th will be an unlucky day for many. Except for one. It's going to be me because I I'm gonna be talking to you. Yeah, she's like, fuck. I gotta deal with her again. She's coming back. She's gonna be so happy to have me back. Let's not play.

Well, that's it for big announcements. We can move on to some quick letters from some friends. We actually got an email from our friend Karen who said that she's been following our podcast for a while, fell behind due to late stage PhD, and she's almost caught up and she's ready for Janie. She knows she's late to the John party but wanted to share this idea with us which came to her during a recent reread. She noticed a strong parallel between John's beheading of Janos, Robb's beheading of Rickard Karstark, and Theon's beheading of Farlin at Winterfell. She goes on to talk about how the beheadings relate to them, like how many blows it takes to separate the head, and how for Jon, it's a little different.

Uh, Karen? Dr. Karen? Dr. Karen? different uh karen dr karen dr karen dr karen says that for john's beheading of janos slinn it only takes him really one try whereas as we see with rob and theon it takes the multiple tries for theon his beheading uh ends up quite quite the hack job uh he struggles to get through farlan's farlan and then for rob you know he almost gets it all the way through for vicar carstark but then needs one more blow and for john he just like you know slices right through janice also though and in in john's in the defense of both rob and theon john had a valyrian steel sword. I would like, I thought, I only realized that right now, but.

Well, it's funny you think that, because I was thinking about how, and it's in this very chapter, actually, that we learn from Jaime, he felt that killing Aerys was easy and quick, right? Aerys ran, he knew what was going to happen, and he

ran, so a lot of people are always pissy like oh he stabbed him in the back but aries knew he knew it wasn't like he came up unsuspecting on him like aries knew what was about to happen to him uh but jamie thinks of how easy and quick it was and for john i don't even know if it was exactly one we just it's ambiguous right john stalks off it's over and i think that does say a lot about his rule especially about about the commandership being a little ambiguous for him right not knowing is he going to be a good ruler is he not going to be a good ruler that penny in the air or that gold dragon in the air so to speak right what kind of ruler will he be and he dies for it

but rob didn't have that chance to come back. Theon got a chance to come back. Jon gets a chance to come back, likely. And Rob did not. But yeah, yeah, Karen, Dr. Karen, does also draw that explicit line of how, you know, how does this relate to Ned's legacy? And as you said, How does this relate to Ned's legacy? And as you said, Jon, like Ned, dies for his decisions. I mean, so does Rob, right? They all pay consequences,

and that's very much a running theme from Jon onto all of his sons, blood or not. Jon emulates Ned in a lot of ways, as we see, and that's, I think, part of what the books are talking about, that family can be more than... It's about the expansive definition of family as well as redefining, well, does family necessarily mean loyalty, right?

Depending on how it is. And you see that in Jaime's chapters. And I think it would be worth noting, right? As you said, a lot of people act as though Jaime stabbed Aerys in the back. But Jaime notes that for Ares, those purple eyes grew huge then. So, did Jaime meet Ned's standards of if you are going to kill a man,

you owe it to lick him in the eyes? I would say so. Yeah. Turns out, Ares' last words were not great. Probably. I mean, we don'tres' last words were not great. Probably. I mean, we don't hear his last words here, but he had some last words and they were not great.

We did get another message on Patreon, actually, from our friend and patron Pepper Nix, who wrote us reminding us about Jacob and Esau as we talk about Jaime and Cersei some more. It's been a very long time. We last brought them up back in John 8 in A Game of Thrones. We talked about them. But our friend Taylor wrote to us way back when.

If you guys can remember all the way back to A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 12 The Kingbreaker. About our Eddard episodes telling us about how they thought Cersei and Jaime were very Jacob and a sow. So I thought that was a great catch of bringing it back up. Yeah, so Pepper talks a little bit about how we discussed Jaime clutching Cersei's

foot in our Jaime intro. And in the previous episode, we had discussed how maybe this has to do with like the idea of an Achilles heel. But Pepper brings up that this is also perhaps a biblical reference regarding the twins of Jacob and Esau, who were sons of Isaac, son of Abraham. It was all like the tribes, right, that come from this and end up making up Israel, especially from Jacob, who ends up inheriting the birthright and stealing the birthright from isao by pretending to be him slipping into that identity and pepper's like this could be my four years of seminary which like look at all these really awesome educated people i know seminary damn doctors christ pepper said when i think about that part about the foot clutching of twins which turns out is actually impossible uh they got very jacob and isao vibes and also sent us a link of twins which turns out is actually impossible uh they got very jacob and nassau vibes and also sent us a link of twins and like birth positions and what it means in the bible we'll

include that link it's interesting there's been lots of what like genesis talk in general lately in our his dark material cast we talked about the tower of babel, and I feel like it all kind of comes around here. The Genesis stories are a lot more involved with creation myths, right? So it's funny that they absolutely positively fit here when they're in the Riverlands where everything's dying. Genesis has a little bit of incest talk, what with Noah's drunkenness and the grandson. Harrenhal is also kind of this memory of the rebellion lost and of the people that came together to shut down a tyrant's reign. Very much so Tower of Babel itself and uprising.

Yeah, especially because what Harrenhal was in some ways meant to be like a sort of spite, a Tower of Babel-esque kind of endeavor of like, we are better than the gods and then got spout by a dragon. I think that's a really interesting connection. I love that Pepper brought up this connection. I know the story of Jacob and his cell, but I didn't know this about how they were born. And this idea of the twins and the stolen birthright.

We had discussed that before. It seems as though Jamie was the one who's going to take the throne based on the 1993 letter. It ends up being Circe, right? But in many ways, I mean, we don't know exactly how the books are going to go, but I don't, I don't disbelieve the idea of Circe taking the throne or who knows what. In many ways, she has done so through her children, right? So this idea of like Circe and that stolen birthright kind of ends up as a sort of reversal, considering that Jacob was the younger brother born just a bit later. Something really interesting to be played on. And I think as we get Jaime to Harrenhal and back home to Cersei, I suppose we will talk some more about it. more about it. Another thing to note, last week, of course, we addressed an email regarding different orders in Westeros, such as the Knights Watch, the Kingsguard, celibacy,

and then we also talked a little bit about the Insolite, etc. Lo, Jaco Muir, whom we've discussed a few times on this cast, made this really great tweet thread that expanded on this idea, on this cast made this really great tweet thread that expanded on this idea and lo has actually written an essay on castration and masculinity and the performance of it by varies and the performance of gender by varies um on their tumblr so would recommend checking that out but uh this tweet thread had a really great discussion on masculinity uh disability sexuality and castration pointing out that the way that the story sort of like interlinks the two and the way that masculinity is linked to, and then also pointing out castration, right?

The Unsullied maybe are meant to be castrated to prevent like those romantic connections as well as sexual assault, but that that doesn't actually preclude one from being an assailant. Though, you know, the Unsullied are, of course, victims themselves, a lot of complex things going out there. But I do think it's interesting, especially as we get more into Jamie's storyline, and we'll talk about this later. I'll link the tweet thread, go check it out, check out Lo's essays. Let's speed on ahead. we have a lightning round to conquer our second jamie lightning round catelyn one catelyn finds herself imprisoned in her childhood home and not just how we felt at age 13 she visits with her dying father and gets news that jamie

has escaped which complicates her plan aria one aria hot pie and gendry are lost along the trident and she dreams through the eyes of a wolf watching a pack tear apart four of the Bloody Mummers. Nice. Tyrion won. Recovering from the wounds he sustained during the Battle of the Blackwater, Tyrion decides to come off of his worker's comp to get back to business. He asks his father to name him heir to Dwayne Johnson. You can imagine the response. I meant Casterly Roth.

No, I know. I knew exactly what you meant. You don't gotta explain it to me. Davos won. Washed up in Blackwater Bay, Davos has somehow survived. Salador San rescues him from the waters. I was pretty excited when I first read that chapter.

I was like, it's Davos. Sansa won. Sansa's coerced into telling the truth about joffrey to the tyrells he's a monster an escape is on the horizon john one i don't even know who this character is john and mance break common ground and john turns cloak denarius one denarius is persuaded to change course from pentos to astapor also jorah wants her to consider having a threesome with him or just to maybe give him heads wait did i do this right shit three heads this is what jorah in fact wants i mean i'm not wrong we don't have a jorah pov my god. Bran I, hunkered down in Tumbledown Tower. Bran learns to work his third eye at will. They make for the wall, hoping to find

someone who can teach Bran more. Davos II. Stannis' power is broken after the Blackwater, and Davos plans to avenge his son's death by killing Melisandre. He's stopped by Axel Florent, who puts him in the dungeons. Fuck that guy. Let them all do their thing puts him in the dungeons fuck that guy let them throw them out do

their thing over there in the reach but for now here in the riverlands the trio arrives at the end of the kneeling man where raw symbolism is contrasted by memories of aries targaryen no smoke rises from the chimneys and there are no lights on it's likely that the inn keeps her hiding or maybe dead brienne says but jamie is afraid of neither type to brienne's annoyance seriously they kind of just spend this whole time annoyed with each other that's basically the book that's the sexual tension there's this great contribution from our producer aliceanne the cat i don't know i don't know what at what point alison came in to edit but it says four five one one there's a lot of ones eight five seven four four four four four

four a lot of fours also so this is in the outline and therefore must be shared with the audience it's like when you read a teleprompter and you stare at the news camera. I mean, we have to. Yes. I mean, the producer, this is what they want. And Allie funds the podcast. I have some arguments, but instead of that... I fund Allie. Jamie Lannister asks Brienne of Tarth if she would like to sleep in a bed for a night to investigate this inn and hide out. And she silently is like, yeah, actually, we probably have to. So she guides the skiff into the dock

and Jaime is made awkward by his chains. He lumbers after them and they come to the end of the dock marked by an iron post with a king on his knees painted into it. So he explains what the humor is behind this. It's the land where King, I almost said Lord,

King Torrhen Stark knelt for surrendering the north to agon the conqueror he had gone south after the field of fire he's like yeah we can do it now's the time to strike and then the field of fire happened he's like i'm gonna kneel yeah he like is staring up at the dragons and he's like better not he's like but what if i didn't yeah and everyone says it's wisdom which it obviously is mean, there's no point fighting three grown dragons. Something interesting happens here with the chronology of the chapters, right? Obviously, Brienne's whole mission is bringing the Stark girls back. And this is the land where Torrin Stark knelt.

But Arya too, two chapters after this, Arya comes through this inn with her very own trio, her, Gendry, and Hot Pie. So you can liken these guys to Brienne, Jaime, and Kleos. Hot Pie even leaves right around the same time Kleos leaves them by dying. So it kind of works in a way. But these chapters kind of echo each other and chase each other throughout the book, the brotherhood versus the mummers, the Harrenhal experience versus their

Harrenhal experience. I don't think these echoes are going to stop in the Winds of Winter necessarily. We've probably talked about it likely in our Game of Thrones episodes, I think for season eight. But with Brienne looking for Sansa in Feast Onward, Arya seems to be trailing a step ahead or behind her. And I think in the Winds of winter brienne is definitely gonna end up seeing aria before she sees sanza in these books in my opinion we have characters you know like sam who run into aria and are like this was okay and then goes off on his way none the wiser about having met aria stark of winterfell the show you know had the whole jamie decides is still obsessed and in love in this toxic thing with his sister and rides off

and I wonder if it could even be this opposite reaction like maybe Brienne going to kill Stannis instead of saving Sansa in season 5 of the bad show when I refer to it as the bad show you know I'm talking about like season 5 through 7 4 through 7 if you want to get technical

2 through 7 five through seven four through seven if you want to get technical two through seven no i'm joking season one um yeah so uh in in the end though you know brienne brienne ditches saving sansa and she goes and kills stannis and i could almost see that happening in the Riverlands instead with a role reversal where instead of saving Arya, Arya has to kill Lady Stoneheart, which is we've obviously chatted is one of my favorite theories. But I could see something where Brienne chooses Jaime over doing her actual duty and she basically loses her honor with that move ironically maybe that's the night she gets knighted yeah with both of his swords we don't know um what or maybe maybe doing so is also the honorable choice right like as we're seeing right now in Brienne's storyline she's being forced into a position that there is little honor in either choice. Same as what Jamie went through as he was like going through his knighthood

before he was like, fuck it. Which we will discuss that fucking moment. If we get a glimpse of it in this chapter, but for now, Jamie is seeing horses in stables. He decides, you know what?

Let's break into the inn. He decides that one horse is all he needs to escape from the wench, as he still thinks of her, and shoves his shoulder into the door, but then is met with a crossbow-armed 15-year-old boy, who asks

Lion, Fisher, Wolf. Honor, of course. Yeah, Brienne and Cleo's kind of crowd in around him and he makes a big joke per usual very jamie smarmy he's like well we were hoping for bird because we're hungry and they spar words a little bit and cleo's and brianne both are like whoa whoa whoa let me calm the situation down we're gonna pay for everything here's real coin the kid is very suspicious because jamie is in chains and jamie's like i killed some crossbow men and he's like give me some ale the kid asks them to disarm themselves and maybe they can talk noting their river run

sale a man steps through the cellar door with a cleaver in hand safe saying he has fresh enough horse meat for three people available with coin so we later learn that this guy has three total horses left not just this one that they saw in the stables but it's very noteworthy that they had four right like he has enough meat for three people and the meat that he has is good but not not fresh, which means it's been being lived off of for a hot second. So while the trio takes those horses, that's it. That guy has nothing. They ate his last horse.

They took the rest of the horses. Hmm. Damn. I mean, I think that's why Brienne is in many ways very generous. We'll get to that. in many ways, very generous. We'll get to that. Jamie tries to flatter the innkeep for now though, saying that the innkeep is honest

since most would actually lie about the freshness of the food. And the guy's like, I'm not an innkeep. I buried the last ones when I found them here, dead at the inn. They're like, I don't know who killed them. Maybe wolves or lions.

He's like, what's the difference? Yeah, it's so apparent. Just like a head. Like they said, lions, fish, or wolf. They don't see gold or crimson or gray and white. Where any soldiers come or where any people involved in the war come, they see blood. Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because I always kind of attribute that to the Brienne chapters, right?

It's something that I think that the Brienne chapters are very known for. The lens into the destruction of the war on the Riverlands. But it really very much starts in Clash, right? But it's apparent here in these Jaime chapters as well. Yeah, the Jaime and Arya chapters are like hand in hand. Yeah, and therefore I mean part of Brienne's story from... I do think it's also, you know, as you were talking about this argument of they just see death and blood, you get this thing coming forward in Jaime's POV.

It's a sort of like twisted way of looking at that idea of all sides are the same. And I think kind of a perversion, right? On the message of the POV that we get, a kind of perversion, right? On the message that we get through John's POVs, as John discovers that, wait, all the other people that we thought were our enemies, they're all people and human too.

Jamie's POV kind of presents a more, I think a different way of looking at that he's jaded and older so it matches his perspective on life it's that yeah all the people are human and all of them suck that's jamie lannister's view right now and along with that we have like these arguments for that murky morality in earlier books already of course but it really starts i think very much cement itself as a big theme in this book like it it was there before right but it's really hammered home in the jamie povs and i think jamie's pov is neil like in the previous chapter jamie's already starting to tell Brienne well it was Stark men right who hung those who hanged those women

and the story's starting to prime us to accept that wait maybe that murky and grey morality that you're seeing between lions and wolves that one side can also do bad maybe the flip side is true of Jaime's own character or that deepening of it

yeah that there can be or that deepening of it. Yeah, that there can be both the duality of it. The Nata innkeep is starting to get frustrated with all of their questions. And he's like, well, I'm not going to serve her talk unless there's more money. So Brienne tosses him a coin and he tells the boy to get onions for the meal. Cleos asks if the boy is his son. And the man's like, nah, we took him in. The lions killed one of our own sons. The other son died in the flux.

This boy lost his mom to the mummers. And they became a very small ragtag family together, protecting each other and this land they stumbled upon. And this is it. This is what the Riverlands has become. Protect the land that you stumble upon absolutely so many people losing family members trying to make new ones the innkeep then directs everyone to sit and jamie does so annoyed by his own clinking chains and then he thinks about how

he wants to strangle brienne with the chains to see how she likes them and i just imagine like jamie trying to like you know role play as princess leia brianna's job of the hut that that's jamie's fantasy right now interesting that he's thinking about strangling brianna with chains when you know it's it runs in the family oh that feeling right and there's the whole idea of the gold hands around Shay's neck. Yeah. And possibly the Valonqar. I mean, so something that I've been thinking about also is like this is not right, you know, like the timing of this

and the Blackwater, Jaime and Chains, you know. Oh, the Chain from the Blackwater. The Chain from the Blackwater ending up being quite the boon, right, for House Lannister in here, for Jaime's like, I hate this. The Nott and Inkeet who listens to the Nodda podcast

grills up the steaks with onions and bacon grease and they drink ale and cider while he asks them for news of Riverrun. Cleos answers and tells them Riverrun has held out but Hoster is failing amidst all the battles. They tell the man they're heading to King's Landing and he calls them three fools.

Last I heard King Stannis was outside the city walls. They say he has a hundred thousand men and a magic sword. Jaime's hands wrapped around the chain that bound his wrists, and he twisted it taut, wishing for the strength to snap it in two. Then I show Stannis where to sheathe his magic sword, he thinks internally. That wasn't clear from my narration but i'd stay well clear that king's road if i were you the man went on it's worse than bad i hear wolves and lions both and bands of broken men preying on anyone they can catch

he said the thing who does aria come though, in the next handful of chapters? A band of broken men, maybe? Bands of broken men, and then who does she get preyed on by? A broken man? The Hound. Yep. Pew, pew, pew. Pew, pew.

Okay. These chapters just high-five themselves, really. They chef kiss, and then they high-five themselves, really. They chef kiss and then they high-five themselves afterwards. Okay. Cleos claims no men would ever prey on them for they're armed. But the cook eye rolls and he's like, it's one man, a woman, and a prisoner. Not really that armed. And of course, Brienne looks at him like, oh, I will murder you.

Because she's a better swordsman than Cleos. And obviously she can give Jaime a run for his money, too. Because she's a better swordsman than Cleos. And obviously she can give Jaime a run for his money too. I just find it interesting here. That Jaime thinks that Brienne hates being reminded she's a woman. And of course this might be before George ever knew. That he was going to give Brienne a POV.

He might not have had that planned. With his gardener way of looking at things. There's a part of me that kind of wonders. Ifie is projecting what he knows of circe onto brienne because as we know circe envies manhood right she envies like the privilege that comes with it uh and but from what i remember it doesn't seem in brienne's povs that she necessarily hates being a woman or does she earn to be a man i think there's definitely a lens that we can use to look at brienne through i don't know being non-binary or genderqueer um i don't know that we're going to jump into that discussion today in depth but she does seem to wish more that like she could be accepted for who she is like that she could be this kind of

perform this maybe kind of womanhood or whoever she is rather or conversely of course a feeling that i'm sure many people have felt wishing that she could conform better to society and those norms unfortunately she realizes that she can't right right? There's nothing she can do, her body is the way that it is. And she lives her life instead, instead of just trying to pursue those norms, just trying to be the most righteous way that she knows how to be. And I think as their journeys progress at first, this is something that Jamie finds super annoying about Brienne, because he was unable to live up up to that but it's something that he'd done gross admire I agree with you I don't think Brienne hates being a woman she hates that her gender limits her for the things she's interested in um it's I mean the things that she

loves to do right like swords and fighting it's never been her body that's limited her from doing that. It's been society looking at her role and what she's supposed to do that limits that. And I think that's what she hates. I don't think that she hates being a woman because there's nothing wrong with it for her. She can do everything she wants to do. It's that society won't let her do it.

Yeah. And she can't perform womanhood in the way that being a lady asks her to do it's that society won't let her do it yeah and she can't perform womanhood in the way that the way that being a lady asks her to do it you know yeah for people like sans are cattle and it comes not effortlessly but i mean politics is something that they're very apt to right they have an aptitude for it and it's not something that comes easy for brian it's where characters like aria really uh shine next to brian when you think about their characters together it's not something that comes easy for Brienne. It's where characters like Arya really shine next to Brienne when you think about their characters together. It's why when I said earlier that trio of Gendry and Hot Pie and Arya really does work against this trio because they're very similar parallels. It's very apparent that Jaime definitely is projecting on Brienne with how he regards her looks, how he's always putting her in Cersei's dresses and how later he's even astonished by

how pretty her eyes were like yes you big dumb idiot you've been busy trying to make her cersei in your brain because you don't know how to relate to humans yeah he sees a lot of things through the lens of cersei especially for these first few chapters and and even later right then it becomes like the opposite side of love is hate but actually not that it's not that the opposite of love is indifference whatever regardless brienne tells the cook that she needs to take the trident to the sea she's gonna go get a mountain maiden pool and then maybe i don't know come through dusk and dale and rosby the cook is doubtful that they're gonna reach maiden pool they're like the channel's blocked up it's burned all the boats are staying 30 miles up and there are outlaws preying on

anyone that comes by also the lightning lord has been seen there as well guess barak don darian kleos demands to know who this lightning lord is god i hate wait do you not does he not know like he really doesn't do like kleos is like the joke went over his head not even that it's like everyone knows his fucking sigil anyways whatever the man tells him lord barak don darian he strikes so suddenly like lightning from a clear sky and it said he can't die jamie darkly thinks they all die if you shove a sword through them. But funnily enough, that still hasn't killed Beric. Jaime doesn't know that.

Yeah, and I didn't think about it. You start getting all that foreshadowing here, right? Because then they're like, oh, Thoros of Myr still rides with him? And it's said that he has strange powers? And Jaime is totally like taking a leaf out of Maester Luwin's book for all this. And he's like, well, the only power Thoros of Myr has is the power of his fucking liver. Because he can match Robert Baratheon forever drink to drink. It is a power.

It is a power. And the fact that like power move Thoros told the king he became a red priestess to cover his wine stains with the robes. It's not a bad idea that. Should I be wearing more red anyways maybe black i do wear a lot of black here well that's what i do too and i do drink a lot of red wine so anyway then jamie thinks that oh yeah when he heard that joe robert laughed so hard he'd spit ale all over cersei's silken mantle of course it's all anchored back into cersei and her dress jamie mentions to the group that the trident may not be a good plan and the cook agrees saying that the ruby ford would give them paws enough last he heard it was the leech lord's wolves guarding it But now it could be lions or Beric or anyone. Hold on. I have a mental image of a enormous leech leading the wolves.

On a leash. Ooh, a leech leash. Yes. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm thinking. Like I just see plankton from SpongeBob. Oh my God.

Plankton. What an icon. Brianne says, or it could be no one. No one's an option too. And the cook's like, well, that's cute.enne says, or it could be no one. No one's an option too. And the cook's like, well, that's cute. And says, you know what? You're better off just leaving as soon as possible.

Stay off the roads. Shelter under trees at night. Maybe you'll survive. Okay, this is so stupid, but I didn't notice it until I read it again. It could be lions or Lord Beric or anyone and brienne goes or no one well guess who's down the road aria and jackin hmm no one i know good one george yeah really clever that's all i had to bring some of the cheese out because i was like ah he had to have

thought of this the cheese from illyrio mopatis brienne says that they're gonna need horses and jamie's like well i remember seeing some on our way in turns out the not an innkeep has three more horses that are definitely not for sale and jamie demands to see them honestly though jamie's pov does constantly stress that he's not an innkeep this is like not just us. You know, like, his chapters are written in the way that, like, Tyrion, his voice and humor, like, very much come through. But I do think, you know, the whole thing about how it's an innkeep, but not an innkeep.

Like, that's kind of what's going on with a lot of the characters in Jaime's story, right? Like, you've got a Kingsguard who's in many ways, like, not really a Kingsguard, right? You've got Brienne, who's a knight, but not a knight. Then you have Cleos, who is a knight, but not really a knight at all. You're going to say a Lannister, but not a Lannister.

A Frey, but not a Frey. Alive, but not alive. Not afraid of what's coming. While they get the horses out, Jaime's ready to look them over. And the three horses are as follows. A lumbering brown plow horse. An ancient white gelding, blind in one eye, a knight's pelfrey, dappled gray, and spirited. So each one of these horses actually is very representative of this trio. Brienne, lumbering strong plow horse.

The gelding, blind in one eye, representing jamie in his king's guard outfit and the injury to come possibly with his hand losing an eye losing a hand and of course the pelfrey for kleos and his fake woke ass chivalry that he obviously has no clue about fuck you kleos you're the worst kleos the king's guard could never hurt children it's like they do it all the time all of the time everywhere in dor oh my god okay anyways um first of all i like how you've made all of the horses match the people this is important to me it's important does this make the listers. No. And also it feels like you made the horses their demons, right? But also

it feels like a throwback. You know, three horses to the very first time you and I recorded together the story of Ser Dunk, the Hedge Knight. There were three horses. Sweetfoot, Chestnut, Thunder.

Bless them, never forget. Love them. Yeah, we actually love those horses so much that we ended up naming one of our Patreon tiers after all three of those. So Jamie doesn't recognize the colors of the blanket on this horse, but we do. And there's really only one other house it could be which

would be house daunt which is nowhere near here uh but there is a house that's very close by here right now which is house bolton kind of interesting jamie doesn't think about this some foreshadowing for harrenhal right here in my opinion and it's very obviously called out george is really trying to build this up and play with us about this hand trade that's about to happen for harrenhal it's almost bolded when george says it used to be pink and black the brainy crew is heading right into what they think is wolf territory but it turns out tywin has gone and covered every corner he actually can he's playing the only way he has left since jamie's been captured now we're seeing catalan's chapters at the same time where bolton's siding with the north quote unquote but then jamie and

brianne show up and it turns out bolton's not really siding with the north it's kind of like a magic trick he's hiding the answer under a moving cup that keeps moving until the cup finally falls and it's what makes that horrible gut twist of the red wedding really effective there's so much foreshadowing that's built up especially because these are i guess early chapters and especially with bruce bold like we knew he was sketchy right and you actually start to see um his thought process in some of these chapters so i'm excited to kind of pick that out as we move along. Even when we get over to Harrenhal

and he interacts with Jaime. But for now, Jaime tells Brienne alright, here's what you should pay the man. She's like, no. I'm gonna tip well. She gives the man a gold dragon for each of the horses from the purse Lady Catelyn had given her. The man wants something more

because he's like, I don't know, gold dragons don't always pay for survival and she's like okay you can have the skiff too and jamie's like you're being robbed blind and she's like no i'm gonna ignore you she asked the cook for provisions as well whatever he can spare i kind of wonder if this like she's doing this not just out of like generosity in general but as you were talking about earlier she notices like wow they just gave us like the last of their meat yes absolutely we'll talk about that in set for now he offers well i guess we got tastier things than oat cakes we also have beds for the evening he's like but that will cost silver and brienne's like no i forgot i uh left my stove on and i need to go now she says the moon will brightly guide us but you can tell that she's like no this feels a little sketch he keeps trying to haggle and push he's

like okay well i'll make it a copper instead and jamie's like no i agree we need to leave now and he also says i also need you to do something about these chains. So the cook's like, there's a smithy out back by the stable. Jamie tells Brienne, oh, there's far too much horse shit about here for my taste. I would hate to step in it. Hoping that she gets his subtle hint as they head toward the smithy. They've got inside jokes now. She breaks his ankle chains, but leaves his wrist chains on still the cook helps them load up to leave warning them of a burnt village six miles down river where the road splits off and which

route was the best take into the woods jamie hops onto his one-eye gelding brianne gets her plow horse and kleos takes the nightly pelfrey so there's a there's a way that jamie phrases this kind of reminds me of that Robert Frost poem briefly. He's like, I don't know, we've got promises to keep, so we got to go. And we've got a long trip. Reminds me of walking through the woods on a snowy evening, I believe is the name of the poem. But also this whole discussion about the blind-eyed horse reminds me of Val going to fetch Tormund, you know, which we covered a few chapters ago with Jon, and by a few chapters ago, I mean a few chapters into the future

from when this was published. Val seemed to think, you know, this half-blind horse is perfectly good enough for my purposes going through, you know, the wilderness. She's like, I'm not blind. It's fine. Interestingly enough, she's also

clothed all in white he's not right now but the image of jamie is interesting yeah and jamie's like no i want a better horse but he's like whatever this is fine i guess it also makes me think of barrack since he was just brought up a bit ago with the one-eye horse yeah i mean there's a lot of one-eyed things that happen in this story right like later on we get a thousand eyes technically not just one eye a thousand eyes in one but whatevs jamie advises the young boy at the inn what if you instead learn to use a spear or a maul he's like that would be way better than a crossbow take my advice and the boy stares at him distrustfully and james like all right whatever

so much for friendly advice, I guess. I kind of feel like Jamie should realize they're lucky they got what they got. Like, nobody wants your friendly advice right now, sir. And it is really interesting in how their differences in upbringing affected this whole entire scenario. Because Brienne wanted to pay this man for the services and the products that he gave them. And Jamie objects. Like, this is wartime. The small folk of the Riverlands have nothing. Brienne wanted to pay this man for the services and the products that he gave them and Jamie objects like this is wartime the small folk of the riverlands have nothing those that have something get picked off one by one by soldiers of whoever the fuck is commanding them whether they're

broken men outlaws men sick of getting no plunder for themselves uh Jamie Brienne Cleos they're all buying their last three horses after eating the last bit of horse that these people had left jamie's never had to obtain a new horse on his own he's never had to worry about that he's never had to worry about how he was going to escape imprisonment or battle like in this manner uh he's always had daddy's gold or an ally to help him right in the crown for example to keep him safe to keep him fed to keep him mounted and when you think about john entering the night's watch it's kind of similar right like when john gets told off by donald noy like hey you don't know you've had privileges these people haven't jamie's been trained at arms he's never hungered

he's never thirsted except maybe for his sister yes he's viewed wrongly by the world his pride's tainted his name's sullied but he's always had his health and never had to worry about where the next meal came from this not an innkeep might not see a customer for days he might not see a single soldier for days they may somehow luck out and have peace for a few weeks at this place. But when someone comes, now all this guy has is a shitty wooden skiff with toly sails. So automatically he has a one-third

risk of getting away from his corner of the Red Fork. And if the trip to this inn has been any indication of what's going on in the Riverlands, it's not likely he's just gonna survive a couple weeks with a skiff, no meat, and this kid with a crossbow. Like, not likely.

Yeah, I think that's like a really good point of what's going on here. And especially, you know, again, comparing Jamie and John's upbringing as they enter each of these orders and coming in as spoiled kids. they enter each of these orders and coming in as spoiled kids but for jamie he never had to completely unlearn that he wasn't he didn't get get a humbling moment in the same way that john did like imagine if granted allister thorne would have i guess like jamie but someone who treated jamie right like allister thorne like if all of the lessons that Jon got were just like no things are terrible and just keep your head down because that's what Jamie got he didn't have mentor figures in the same way he had people he looked up to and they all let him down yeah at least Jaor or Corrin or Mance told Jon how the world worked you know or at least taught him and

Donald Noy I mean John had obviously 800 dads, as we learned going through his point of view. But Tywin wasn't even one dad to Jamie. Yeah, John had 800 dads, and they told him how the world worked, and they told him, this is, yes, how the world works, but here's what you can do to make the world a little better, right? Jamie was told, this is how the world works for us for us and we don't change it this is our job is to uphold the status quo why fuck with the wheel if the wheel keeps spinning yeah so they move along the red forks banks jamie's horse is

drifting off to the side due to his eye here and there. He hadn't been on his own horse since Whispering Wood, when Rob's archers had killed his horse. They reach the burnt village finally and come to their crossroads. None of the paths look great to take, per se, but they choose a southern, straight, and stony path, the same road the cook warned them against. Brienne reveals she didn't trust this not an innkeep and thought he might be pushing them into a trap. At least they could rule out one problem this way. Jamie thinks this is clever. Yeah, he's like, oh, okay. So she picked up on my joke.

We did, we got inside jokes. Something that I also wanted to call out to talk about Brienne again for a bit. Jamie notes Brienne's posture as she's horse riding riding the horse. I don't know terminology. She hunches but he notes that she also is still got sure seating. She rides well. And I think this is noteworthy because

in Jamie pointing this out, he gives us sort of a mini view into what is good riding. You know, he's a well-regarded fighter slash knight, like in terms of skill, not in terms of honor, obviously. So he knows, right? And the upper body affects horseback riding. Slouching can push

the pelvis or something into the horse, make them go faster than you want them to. It's not great for controlling the horse's movement in certain ways. So for Brienne to have that sort of control despite her posture, I think, speaks to her skill. Since Jaime's like, oh yeah, she's got this. But it's not even that. I think

that you get some of the characterization right there that Brienne is slouching even though she would have received training on what is good riding, but that she still slouches is part of her character. She does it because of her appearance. It's a habit that she's adopted in order to make herself seem smaller, maybe more womanly, even though based on Westerosi standards, because height, we see it's valued in men, right? People like the Cleganes um even with hodor it's something that's noted often as a positive it's valued in men but for brienne it

that height made her undesirable by westerosi standards because then she rivals men so she tries to shrink herself and beyond that it also shows us that she's kind of shy i understand that It also shows us that she's kind of shy. I understand that. Understanding, Brienne. That's right, you are tall. I get you, girl. I am tall. Very tall.

Chloe's a tall. It's unfortunate. It's a hard life. I get you, Brienne. And something you said really reminded me. Jamie's horse in this moment, how it's riding kind of to the side, riding off the road, kind of reminds me of cal drogo when he was riding on his horse and kind of drifting off uh unable to ride anymore and then

get ready buckle up i'm about to slap you to the next area are you ready i'm ready it reminds me of jamie when he gets his hand cut off. Huh. Trying to stay conscious. Oh. Even when they're leaving Harrenhal and he's a horse. It reminds me of that a little bit. So I don't know if maybe this horse is supposed to invoke that idea here in this moment, but it did remind me of that. The horses are their demons. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Maybe. Maybe. They stay off the road till they can pass the tower house and other big buildings, and by the middle of the night, they are drooping in their saddles. They take shelter in a small oak and ash grove by a stream, and they eat stale oat cakes and

saltfish. Brienne will not let them light a fire, because she doesn't want to give away their location, and then she takes first watch. The half moon sat overhead in a black felt sky, surrounded by stars. Off in the distance, some wolves were howling. Some wolves were howling. One of their horses wickered nervously. There was no other sound. The war has not touched this place, Jamie thought. He was glad to be here, glad to be alive, glad to be on his way back to Circe. Because we had Ned's chapters before and Sansa's in both Game and Clash, and even like a lot of Tyrion's chapters, right?

We get their interactions with Circe. So she's very much a like fully fleshed out and established character for the reader. Like they've had a lot of interactions with Cersei. She has her own emotions. She has her own character motivations. We see it as early as Game of Thrones. And then you end up with jamie who has some like really pivotal character moments such as like literally the beginning of this story this entire story uh but at the same time it actually gets very little i think screen time he's sort of kept in the background somewhat mysterious until we get his conversation with catelyn and because of that through his pov we

end up getting jamie as a character defined very much by his own relationship with Cersei. Because Cersei's already an anchored character here. And it ends up with a lot of Jamie's character motivation, especially in these first few chapters of his POV. His motivation is just be with Cersei. That's his driving narrative force. was Cersei that's the his driving narrative force and I think that the dispersal of that as his character motivation uh as his character develops is part of why the audience so clearly feels that shift in his character um it's not necessarily redemption but it it's something that is so pivotal right that the propelling narrative force changes for him and it ends up moving from like that external

development or external force into an internal one as he tries to establish like his own legacy and find himself brienne of course is a big part of that but yeah i'm excited to see what his internal look will be when we get to the Winds of Winter. What's changed 100%? You know, I think the Winds of Winter is gonna be the big kicker to see where Jaime is and looking at him at this huge overarching look from a Storm of Swords Jaime, from a Game of Thrones Jaime.

From the very beginning till now. Ugh. I'm excited. So while Cleos is snoring, Jamie is very awake he asks Brienne of her family she says that she is her father's only child she begins to say

his only son but cuts herself off and Jamie laughs at her he tells her you do make an odd daughter to backtrack like yeah there's a story called the Roman de Solance that I wonder if this has played a big influence on brienne's character it's the story of a family that raises their

of a noble family that raises their daughter as a son um because like the king outlawed women from inheriting and they're like but what if silencios is how the name ends up getting said because silencios is performing as a man doesn't really realize till much later on that like oh i guess i'm a girl but like doesn't really necessarily identify with that. There's a lot of interesting ways to discuss this from gender theory. Ends up being a really good night, better than a lot of the other nights, right? And you actually get a shift in pronouns between like,

whether they're silencious, right? Or if they're going by silence based on it, based on like how they're performing in that moment or what role they're taking. So really interesting. We'll get more into that. There's a lot there's a lot of those like sort of medieval stories that come up and get deconstructed in both Brienne and Jamie's storylines. Well, and funnily enough, there's obviously the super basic one. And tell me if you've heard this one before but uh you know the girl decides to go

leave home and portray herself as a soldier as a male soldier oh interesting interesting yeah i think they have one of those right in china have you heard of it i think so i think so i don't know if you'd be into it i meanan? I mean, like, I've heard of it. I've heard of it. Never- Oh, it's my life. It's my entire life. I mean, not that. I mean the love of this movie. This story.

Okay. So we have this quote now from Jamie of, what a wretched creature this one is. She reminded him of Tyrrian in some queer way though at first blush two people could scarcely be more could scarcely be any more dissimilar perhaps it was that thought of his brother that made him say i did not intend to give offense brienne forgive me um our friend lo that we talked about all the time actually emailed us a while ago

about tyrian and how for Jaime his masculinity is very much being able to perform things like fights and swords and different things and how Tyrion, his masculinity has been trying to establish himself in court and to live up to his father's

expectations as much as he can and to try to prove himself as a Lannister of the Rock. So I thought that was interesting that he equated Brienne with Tyrion as two people that I guess are physically limited in what society allows them to do. And as this chapter is happening, let's take a look over in King's Landing. The battle has been won thanks to Tywin and the Tyrells, which it's a debt that seems small at first, but the Tyrells really end up bringing more of this doom to the Lannister house. Tyrion and Tyrion One is actually asking for his birthright from Tywin. The knights of the Kingsguard are forbidden to marry, to father children, and to hold land. You know that as well as I. The day

Jaime put on that white cloak, he gave up his claim to Casterly Rock. But never once have you acknowledged it. It's past time. I want you to stand up before the realm and proclaim that I am your son and your lawful heir. And then, of course, in a burst of parallels, in Tyrion 2 and A Storm of Swords, the next claimant to be made to the Kingsguard is Loras Tyrell. Tyrion asks Loras when he talks to him, why would anyone choose to join the Kingsguard is Loras Tyrell. Tyrion asks Loras when he talks to him why would anyone choose to join the Kingsguard

at 17? Prince Aemon the Dragon Knight took his vows at 17, Ser Loras said, and your brother Jaime was younger still. Yeah. So that was our King's Landing check-in. Fascinating. You know, Loras Tyrell being like,

yeah, these are my heroes things went great for them right flash over to jamie in a storm of swords teenagers and i think that that's a good thing to call out especially you know as you're seeing that connection between jamie and tyrian and how it plays into brianne and and you can tell that it really touches him because he said he addressed her as Brienne in his apology. Yes. And he does it specifically. Yeah.

Which shows that he has the capacity. The capacity to be nice. It's in there. Yeah. And Brienne's like, okay, Slayer. Yeah. She tells the Kingslayayer his crimes are past forgiving and he's like why

do you hate me like why does this chick hate me so much I've done nothing to hurt her personally but of course it comes back to Ares and that's why she hates him and they jibe back and forth refusing to call each other by their actual names until she asks him why did you

take the oath if you were just going to betray it? There's so much name play here with him refusing to call her Brienne and her refusing to call him Jaime. And I know a huge layer of that that we really get to soak off of us in the bathhouses is that Jaime has never let anyone be that close to that side of him. Like, why would he let anyone know the man beneath the Kingslayer when that's all that they think he is? What's the point? And he spent so much time in this shell of a person.

And another reason we came really close to putting Jaime next to Theon was this focus of identity. In a way, Theon too was a Kingslayer, right? With Bran being King Robb's heir. And what justifies a kill? Theon's murder of the Millers boys is just as awful, if not worse, than killing the actual princes of Winterfell. And it's bad for other people in the north, right?

Morale, trick to let the Boltons in. Jaime's murder of King Aerys was good for the people, despite murder being bad, technically, and also preventing the city from blowing up. Theon ends up having a classic redemption arc, showing right now the chance to do better, to repent his sins, saving Jane even though she's no one. Suffering at the hands of the Boltons, obviously I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone to redeem their character, but he's definitely

suffered, right? He's on a different path now. But how can Jamie redeem what wasn't really a bad act? It was more of just a PR nightmare. For me, in these first few chapters, obviously, we're not in love with Jamie from these first few chapters.

Like, he's a smarmy git. He gets off on having other people do his work for him uh his need to protect himself emotionally is like every guy i've ever dated right like you're just sitting there and you're like come on jamie come on we're so close you can get intimate with us jamie uh yes the world's laughed at him and he's isolated himself in a toxic relationship that psychologically fucked him up to no end of time but he is being really unshiverous here which is a great way

to look at the growth we see from him when he punches Redron in the face right like even though it's technically done in the Lannister Baratheon name it's still far more chivalrous than any of the times he's acted in these first two chapters yeah and i don't

know that that's what jamie's trying to redeem himself from right like we find out oh turns out that wasn't bad it's the our first i mean like from the get-go our first impression of him is like he throws children off buildings to improve their health right it's that kind of behavior it's the kind of behavior where you know you just sleep with your sister a lot and destabilize i'm just gonna throw kids out of windows yeah yeah like that's the behavior but he spends so much time thinking that oh i'm reviled for this awful behavior blah blah blah it's like jamie it's the other stuff dude yeah and it's unlike john right he ends up being reviled for all the things that he's done thus far to break his oaths yet he's like yeah that sucks

i'm gonna just keep trying to do what i think is right though he like Jamie admits to it he's like yeah I did all that I slept with her yes I killed Corrin half hand that did happen yep what I'm saying is if they had a better PR team yeah would have gone way differently

but the PR narrative that the Lannisters have chosen was not like what if we made ourselves more likable or explain things? They were just like, we will scare them. We will scare them into submission. Yeah, the Lannister PR team would just kill you in an alley. They're like, this is good, right? This is what you don't want.

Jaime tells Brienne that he was a boy when it all happened she's like I don't like that answer he's like well the real answer is even worse I joined the Kingsguard for love because of course of course that's how that works

so Tywin had summoned Cersei to court he's like I'm gonna make a match for you and he obviously hoped it would be Rhaegar somehow. Somehow. He's like, maybe Elia will die, right? I'm still pursuing the same dream from back then. Or maybe like Viserys is going to grow older.

And Jaime had been squiring for Lord Sumner Crakehall for four years. He'd fought in the Kingsguard, the Kingswood. Goddammit. He fought against the Kingswood Brotherhood, and then when he visited home, Cersei was like, guess what? Dad's trying to marry you to Lysa

Tully. And he's like, but I have a solution. I have a solution for how we're gonna be together. You're gonna join the Kingsguard, and then you're gonna hang out with me in the capital. While I cuck my husband. Yeah, and she's like, you can do all this

for the low price of Casterly Rock. More or less literally how she sells it to him. Every time he went to sleep, she woke him again. By morning, Casterly Rock seemed a small price to pay to be near her always. He gave his consent, and Cersei promised to do the rest.

A moon's turn later, a royal raven arrived at Casterly Rock to inform him he'd been chosen for the Kingsguard. He was commanded to present himself to the king during the great tourney at Harrenhal to say his vows and don his cloak. But that's the only thing that went to plan, because while his dad couldn't openly object, he resigned immediately from his hand job, taking Cersei home to Casterly Rock with him. Womp, womp, womp. The saddest hand job.

And Jaime's like, great, now I'm just here? Alone? Yep, this is you. And celibate? Even though I was planning on breaking that? What? is you and celibate even though i was planning on breaking that what yeah and so i i many people have said this before right but there's absolutely shades of the legend of lancelot sir lancelot and guineinevere here between Jaime and Cersei, right? You got also, like, some of that knight-errant story going on here. The knight-errant, right, does a lot of wandering around trying to, like, fulfill chivalric deeds or trying to be heroic, and Jaime's story is, I think,

very much a subversion of that. He becomes a errant you know he he was landed right he had a place he was gonna inherit casterly rock he ends up becoming a wandering knight and not having a place because he's like but what if i gave it all up for love and that's like honey what if i told you your love was fucked up yeah it was and like it's an even more fucked up version, right, of the story of Lancelot. There's a lot ofvere that is much more detailed it's very much inspired by his own experiences though with the war of the roses and I thought that was noteworthy because George R. R. Martin was inspired by the war of the roses he thought that he was originally going to write like a historical fiction about the war of the roses and he's like but my friend convinced me to add dragons so maybe I'll just do that instead and the love of so glad he did yeah the love affair of lancelot and guinevere of course

led to the split and the destruction of an entire kingdom and like you know here here we are a song of ice and fire jamie circe three bastard children born of incest a war that we see all around us lions or wolves or fish oh my so jamie during all this time had been alone in the capital stuck guarding aries watching different hands of the king try and fail to fill Tywin's shoes. He remembers the heraldry, better than the men, Horn of Plenty, which is Meriwether, Dancing Griffins,

John Connington, the Mason Dagger, Chelstead, and last but certainly least, Lord Rosswood the Alchemist. Certainly least. Certainly least. Certainly least. Oh, man. A lot of this talk reminds me

just of the Lannister crime family. Porkminton over on Nauticast. Shout out to them. Congrats on your 100th episode, you guys. And one million downloads. And one million downloads. I know, right? They're famous now.

Do you think they'll sign my autograph? Wait, that didn't make sense anyways poor quentin over at noticast has absolutely always referred to the lannister family as a crime family or a big boss mafia family they really are uh and cersei was like cersei was the prettiest single girl left after the rebellion. And everyone stayed away. Why do you think that was? Right? Like, why do you think Cersei was not? Like, yes, he was saving her, hopefully, for Rhaegar, a really good match.

But, like, also people just were like, no, that's okay. We know better. Because Lord Kiss the Ring Lannister was a scary bitch. And, like, Jamie in this chapter, he's recanting what going to the white cloaks was like. And it reminds me of this scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill played by Ray Leota, he goes off. Henry Hill was an American mobster who did it all.

He was arrested on narcotics charges, ended up an FBI informant. So he got out by testifying about his colleagues. He got 50 of them convicted, and he ended up dying of a heart attack. Not badassery, but it spruced up for the movie. And the couple parts of the passage in the movie that really remind me of this. The hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life, and we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar bowl full of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars, the keys to a dozen hideout flats all over

the city. I'd bet 20-30 grand over a weekend and I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn't matter. Didn't mean anything. When I was broke, I'd go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking and now it's all over that's the hardest part today everything is different there's no action i have to wait around like everyone else can't even get decent food right after i got here i ordered spaghetti with marinara and i got egg noodles and ketchup i'm an average nobody i get to live the rest of my life like a schnook um that's like the

difference between the king's guard before like like what Jamie thought he was walking into like a big old bowl of cocaine and like everything in the world and then like as soon as they had him kneel on that grass they were like alright kid well that's it you're locked up now congratulations

enjoy the egg noodles and ketchup signed up for a life of celibacy you schnook he thought you were gonna get to bang your twin sister the whole time instead of telling Brienne all this he's just like you're not old enough to remember Ares

and Brienne's like okay boomer he was still king, crowned, anointed and his duty was to protect him you swore to and Jaime turns his background on Brienne and he's like, aren't you a Kingslayer too? He's like, what about Renly? And Brienne is like,

shocked Pikachu face. Yeah, that's right. Actually, oh my god, I forgot. That's like my favorite meme ever. So versatile. She's like, I never harmed Renly. There was a shadow in cold air and then blood as though this would be very believable for most people the next time around for some reason and then

jamie's like one king slayer to another did the starks pay you to slit his throat or was it stannis had redley spurned you was that the of it? Or perhaps your moon's blood was on you? Never give a wench a sword when she's bleeding. Ah, I see Westeros has that colloquialism in common. Interesting. Jaime thinks Brienne means to hit him in that moment, and if she didn't, I would've. And he decides he'll use the opportunity to take her dagger in his head.

But then neither of these things happen interesting she tells him it's a rare and precious gift to be a knight especially one of the king's guard and that he shit upon it yeah which finally you know it comes out what the whole thing is about right why why she feels this way but jamie doesn't get it he's like uh i earned my knighthood okay um he writes it recites his accomplishments with the brotherhood and arthur dane and tells her you know you should be mad at the gods for not giving you a cock it's not me it's not my fault first off the gods aren't real jamie second off these are such learned behaviors like eliana said earlier being projected Brienne, just like Cersei did to Sansa about their gender.

When we were little, Jaime and I were so much alike that even our lord father could not tell us apart. Sometimes as a lark, we would dress in each other's clothes and spend a whole day each as the other. Yet even so, when Jaime was given his first sword, there was none for me. when Jamie was given his first sword there was none for me what do I get I remember asking we were so much alike I could never understand why they treated us so differently Jamie learned to fight with sword and lance and mace while I was taught to sing and smile and please yeah uh I mean it's very obvious where these projections come from. You spend your life in love with one person, Cersei, and this is how it kind of comes out. Yeah, he just thinks that every woman's kind of like her. Yeah.

But Brienne has nothing to say to this. She's not like, that's not necessarily what I wanted. She's just like, I just wanted to be allowed to be a knight, no matter what my sex or gender was. She doesn't say this aloud because I don't know if jamie would even get it at this point jamie's still kind of like in meathead jack mode and so he just curls up in his cloak and he's like i'm gonna just try to dream of cersei uh that doesn't go well either you know all the things when when he tries to do this right it doesn't go well he ends up haunted by dreams of aries targaryen instead if you squint

i mean i mean the hair color maybe you know if in the right lighting in this light maybe she could be a knight uh aries is pacing the throne room in this dream picking scabs from his arms where he cut himself open on the throne jamie slips into the room and he remembers it just like it was in this dream. He's wearing his golden armor and not his white. Aerys sees blood on Jaime's blade and demands to know if it's Tywin's blood and says, I want him dead. The traitor, I want his head.

You'll bring me his head or you'll burn with all the rest. All the traitors. Rossart says they're inside the walls. He's gone to make them a warm welcome whose blood whose that's what jamie answers and says rossart's such like a baller move yeah especially because the passage goes those purple eyes grew huge then and the royal mouth drooped open in shock he lost control of. He lost control of his bowels,

turned and ran for the Iron Throne. And then I love that, of course, the end of the passage is, a single slash across his throat was all it took to end it. So easy, he remembered thinking, a king should die harder than this. Yes. It's a good line.

It's not discussed often. Yeah. A king should die harder than this. Yes. It's a good line. It's not discussed. It's not discussed often. Yeah. A king should. I mean, think about Robert's death. Yeah. That was a gruesome, prolonged death. Now, if you're Cersei, maybe not.

But Cersei's over there like, could have happened weeks ago. I've just been trying. Cersei's like, that was so hard. Took a long time. so she was like that was so hard took a long time i i want to focus there's a line that follows uh this thought process of jamie's rosart at least had tried to make a fight of it though if truth be told he fought like an alchemist weird that they never asked who killed rosart but But of course, he was no one. Lowborn, hands for a fortnight, just another mad fancy of the Mad King. Frankly, I think Jaime's right in calling this out.

You know, like for a lot of the story we see, as you've been pointing out, he was raised like a Lannister. I mean, all of them were, right? They don't give a shit about lowborn people. Even Tyrion doesn't. And coming back again to how it could have been with theon and the miller's boys you know you discuss in depth and we we both did in the theon chapters that he's struggling to understand that you know part of what you did bad was killing the miller's

boys he's just like i didn't kill bran and rick and i'm innocent it's like yes but what about those kids regardless of their station, they mattered. And I think that there's a kind of irony here in that it's Jaime who's the one who's noting it with Rosar, like, maybe comes back to the vows that he's just, like, thrown away in that moment when he's like, fuck it. Because, like, he notices Rosar because, I mean,

a good king should, A good knight should. And he's not a good knight because he just killed him. Whatever. But he's right that no one ever really thinks about him because he is lowborn. We have Ned's POV. Ned never thinks about Rosard at all. He's not mentioned at all in A Game of Thrones. at all like he's not mentioned at all in a game of thrones his first mention is in a clash of kings when you know the not the tyrian's talking to the alchemist but it's jamie who's the one who

actually like gives him space and then there even remembers him i i know that the obvious meta answer is because george r martin gardened rosar later on but if we're taking just the text in this moment well and it's an also it's an interesting thought because ned in the moment isn't thinking about any of that i mean why ned would be most upset about aries is he doesn't probably know all the details of what went on with rhaegar and aries right like he doesn't know aries was gonna be the heir and something special was gonna happen that he was gonna take over from the dad or he doesn't know all that he just doesn't know aries was gonna be the heir and something special was gonna happen that he was gonna take over from the dad or he doesn't know all that he just doesn't there's no way liana had

enough time in her dying breath to give ned all the answers right like i think we can all agree that in that moment and that's pretty emotionally fucked up yeah when he shows up at that king's landing you know he's like oh the targaryens are all dead all the tiny targaryen children super tiny children dashed against a wall broken against a wall yeah and jamie doesn't know that all of that has happened yet because he's like i don't know maybe baby agon could be king that could happen yeah miscommunication lots of non-communication at all especially within the lannister family my god as you said like ned doesn't know that jamie you know has just spoken with his father's knights ellie's westerling and lord craig hall and he saw in their eyes like that they were gonna blame him

and he was just like i don't know i don't give a shit he becomes king i didn't do this for any that he's like because they were like are you you going to crown your dad, Robert? Another Targaryen. He's like, I don't know. I just want to sit down. Take a seat. Cause it's easy to think so. Tywin's a dick.

It's easy to think that Jamie is just like his dad. Uh, but no one ever thought to fucking know what Jamie was like. They just assumed that he was just like Tywin. Yeah. He, like Tyrion has been in many ways living under the shadow of Tywin. It's affected them in different ways

because he was a bad father. Yeah, he was a non-father. Absolutely. He was like opposite. Very abusive. Not a father. Not a dad. Not a dad.

Not a dad, actually, though. I did want to call out quickly that the Lord Kraykhal that finds Jaime here is Lord Roland Kraykhal, not Sumner, for whom Jaime squired. So it is kind of noteworthy call out quickly that the lord craig hall that finds jamie here is lord roland craig hall not sumner for whom jamie squired so it is kind of noteworthy and maybe a little emotional that this is who found him and blamed him with his eyes because he squirted for that house a house he grew up in yeah i mean this is where he grew up like who who is this they're like not my family and when you think about how Ned and Robert grew up Jon

Arryn was willing to go to a war for him but the Kraykals walk in and judge him yeah Jaime is basically directing these guys in the throne room in this dream to take captives and spare those who yield and that is when Kraykal asked you know who who should be the new king and this is a huge moment right like this is where a lot of people talk about kristen cole right when it comes to dance the dragons and i think jamie was more king maker in this moment right like he could have been the king maker he could have been kristen cole in this moment but instead uh he just flipped him off and said proclaim whoever the fuck you want he's trying to remove himself from the game he stopped playing the game stopped being a king's guard and he's like i don't know

i don't give a shit all he wanted was just a chance to understand who he was and he was never going to get that as the son of tywin lannister and he doesn't get to get that as a knight of the king's guard either yeah and he doesn't get to get that as kingslayer right he did this one thing and it's defined him his entire life he'd never got to find out who he was he just found out who everyone else thought he was like for example who eddard stark thought he was jamie's dream ends uh and i think it's i think it's just really pretty imagery. It ends with, You had no right to judge me either, Stark. In his dreams, the dead came burning, gowned in swirling green flames. Jaime danced around them with a golden sword,

but for every one he struck down, two more arose to take his place. Hmm. That sounds interesting. That feels very significant. And while it reminds me a little bit of sack at king's landing ask with the whole swirling green flames sure i think it's very much so supposed to remind us of the north maybe with the others somehow the white the white

with the green flames is this is this everyone he struck, two more arose to take his place. Is this a butterfly? A song of ice and fire? I don't know. I just don't know. Well, neither does Jamie. He never gets to think about it because Brienne makes him with a boot to his ribs. She's like, we gotta eat.

Now we gotta go. On to the next adventure. Aw, here it goes. Settle down. Settle down there cal caliana caliana and keenan lee i don't know we'll work on it we'll workshop this jamie wearing the gold armor purposefully and like specifically him remembering it i think it's an interesting thought that pops up because he's using it to justify his behavior in a way. I know we talked a lot about defense mechanisms in Sansa chapters and Theon chapters.

I wrote about it over at my world famous blog, LiesInArborGold.com. But through this chapter and through Jaime's thoughts, we've kind of learned Jaime has deep-seated trauma from King's Landing. Gasp. Read all about it. He has deep-seated trauma from King's Landing. Gasp. Read all about it. He has deep-seated trauma from Casterly Rock. He has several internal defense mechanisms he's developed in order to sustain his emotional psyche without compromising the little progress he's made in protecting himself along the way. uh and instead of opening up and becoming intimate with someone else or vulnerable which he is afraid to do because he's only ever been like that with cersei who constantly chides him and is toxic and cruel and shuts him down um much like his parent tywin has been with him his whole life probably as

well yes he's the golden son but tywin's not probably happy about the whole king's guard thing still uh i think it's very obvious that jamie was using the golden armor to say like it wasn't all bad at least i didn't wear the whole entire costume you guys i think that's significant because like jamie is one of i think the strongest ways that a song of ice and fire deconstructs some of these larger tropes that george is writing against especially like things like the chivalric romance or is exploring those in different ways and i think that the golden armor plays into that like so much of a song of ice and fire has this running idea of

the stories that we tell ourselves and that defining our choices and the stories and the heroes that we look up to are who we try to pattern who we want to be and turns out a lot of those stories are perverted in the retellings of those and over the years you brought up sansa and her trauma and like sansa's story dealt with that heavily especially as she clings to those as a way to like continue keeping her values through what she goes through uh as cersei trying to disillusion her we see jamie trying to do that with brianne in these chapters it's something we see in both bran and john's chapters people keep giving them like alternate versions of the songs and legends they're like you know that's not how the story goes, right? Or like, haven't you heard of Bail the Bard? And, you know, learning that the people who are positioned as monsters aren't that, they're just people. And for a lot of the story, sometimes it's also learning that people are more monstrous than they thought they could be.

So for Jamie, I think it's interesting that he's so caught up on people being like, how come they got the armor wrong? Right. That it was gold and not white because what it's because in the retelling of the story and the dramatization that everyone's been saying around the kingdom, white makes it that much more dramatic. It highlights the betrayal of his oaths. Yeah. makes it that much more dramatic it highlights the betrayal of his oaths yeah and as you were saying you know the gold is important for him it's jamie finally deciding for one to take his destiny into his own hands like as you said he's like i didn't wear it at least and he doesn't partially because in that moment the gold shows that he's jamie he's not necessarily a lanester in that red uh he's not a king's guard even though he's like still wearing the cloak he's decided in that moment i'm not

going to be a king's guard and just as the realm forgets the detail of his armor you know jamie's dream and where it starts it actually positions aries as weak and pitiful and jamie as the aggressor it glides completely past the real reason why Jaime was in that throne room with the candlestick in the first place you know why he's wearing the gold armor

all of that never gets told in the larger narrative about Jaime the Kingslayer but you know we're going to get to that in a later chapter I think something that's really poignant especially in light of what the bad show did with its finale with john killing danny obviously that's a very if it's if it's legit which i don't know but if john is the death of danny in one way or another um the way that jamie probably put on his armor knowing

what he had to go down to that throw room and do like he put on his gold armor that day knowing that he was going to walk with the heavy weight at his feet at his shoulders saying this is what you're going downstairs to do right now i think that's really important to think about like he had to plan for it and he had to have tossed and turned about it he thought about just letting it be but he couldn't do that yeah and he had to have intentionally done that because i mean his job is to be in armor and for him to have chosen that one of all days and not the king's guard even ned uh who has an impeccable sense of style honestly you don't really think about it until you read all of his chapters only in a row

but uh ned very carefully chooses what he wears and when he wears it and i think for especially for men interestingly enough in westerosi society what you wear does denote absolutely tone it denotes uh is this a hostile meeting is this a meeting of just business what is this meeting and you have to know what to wear for Kingsguard I think even more so for Kingsguard I mean for the Night's Watch right for them Sean thinks often about like wearing the black and all the other people. And Mance Rayder chooses who he wants to be because he's like,

no, I don't want to wear black all the time. I want to wear this incredibly meaningful red and black cape. And the choosing of the clothes can be that motivation and absolutely symbolizes that identity. That's why we have our fashion hour segments and today is jamie and his golden armor well we have lots to come next week to discuss as

far as jamie brienne even kleos god rest his soul wait is that a spoiler um this is a reread podcast it's a reread so i could talk about Cleos being dead because it fucking slaps! It slaps! But next week, fangirl Jean is going to be here to help us make it slap, and we are so pumped for that. Yes, I'm excited to have her on for this chapter. I was like, if there's anyone that I want on to discuss this.

Oh my god, she's just gonna have the best analysis of the entire sword fight one of the top three sexiest scenes in all the song of ice and fire i'm gonna be real what's your other two um lady rohan and dunk i don't know if that counts i guess that's not technically a song of ice and fire so maybe that throws off my um i haven't thought about the other one i just three just sounded like a good number you know people say top three things right okay well they never say bottom three gosh anyways thank you so much for listening this week you guys this has been yet another

super fruitful discussion about jamie i worry for the rest of the chat. Why? Oh, because they're also in depth? There's so much depth and I love them, but wow, we are not gonna get a single twofer done, are we? I don't think so. Well, it's a good place to be. Stuck with friends. Next week we'll be stuck with fangirl Jean, and we have

I think at least one or two other guests happening during Jamie, so keep an ear open for that. Yes, and of Jamie's, so keep an ear open for that. Yes. And of course, don't just keep an ear open. Subscribe to us on social media. You can find us at Girls Gone Canon on Twitter, C-A-N-O-N. Or again, shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Especially shoot us an email if you would like to win a free ticket to Ice and fire con uh girls got canon at gmail.com

remember make your subject line favorite pov put your favorite pov tell us a little bit about why it's your favorite and illyrio mopatis may or may not patronize your trip to ice and fire con not the entire trip only the ticket caveat lodg food, etc. is not included in this sweepstakes prize. And don't forget to subscribe to us over at a platform where you listen to podcasts as well while you're at it. We are on Podbean where we're hosted. Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, you name it, we're there. Look us up on the internet of course we do have our patreon where uh all subscribers five dollars and up get special episodes this month the special episode will be about his drug materials it will be covering the

prequel sequel series the The Books of Dust, especially The Secret Commonwealth. Chloe, I guess I'm just going to talk about Chloe. Chloe will be joined by special guest Faye of Her Dark Materials, and I am abandoning all of you. You said it out loud. I admitted it.

It's true. Oh my god. Yes, you are, but you'll be back you can't stay away from us for long allegedly maybe Faye will start being your other host you guys is what I'm trying to say you need a new mom we'll get a new mom

we are so excited to have fangirl Jean join us for Jamie 3 next week and we will talk to you next week I have been one of your hosts Chloe and I I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I've been another one of your hosts, Eliana. For now. For now.

Bye guys. Goodbye. Is it my fault that mom's leaving?