Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 89 - AFFC Jaime I
Episode Date: May 8, 2020Jaime mourns for the family that he has clearly lost, and the man as well. --- Eliana's twitter:Â https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account:Â https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_g...irl Eliana's blog:Â https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter:Â https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog:Â www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage
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Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon, A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 89, Jamie 1 in A Feast for Crows.
I'm one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as LizaNArbor on Twitter, Tumblr, or LizaNArborGold.com.
And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit, on the Maester Monthly Podcast.
I swear to God, this is going to come out and be had to re-record it.
Or Arithmetric on Twitter.
Tana Ford is going to have to come back on here
and be like, you guys are copywriting me
with your Maester wheneverly.
Yeah, okay, but we should have Tana back.
We should have Tana back. And I like that idea.
The one episode update that we can give you all right now
is that we are going to have the Free Cities back this month in May.
I know that a lot of people are thinking about the Free Cities as well,
you know, because we're all thinking about,
man, remember that time we could be free in our cities?
But...
No, I don't.
Once upon a time, we used to leave this block radius.
How many episodes of ours start like this now?
But this month, for Patreon, we are doing a Song of Ice and Fire episode,
and we are going to do Myr.
Last month, we did Tyrosh.
It's a Myr Dario.
Yes, and I do want to walk people
through my rationale for how
we picked Mia
you know there's a lot to say probably
of how it follows Tyrosh but really I picked it
because the month is May
Mia is spelled M-Y-R
it's three letters begins with the letter M
has the letters M and Y and I'm like
it's like the same word
yep that was uh
honestly we had eight choices and that was what we chose chloe was like okay she was fine with
that rationale she she signed off on this okay first off i don't like that you're giving me
the blame you're kind of acting like jamie lannister in this chapter and i don't like it
no then i would say it was all my fault that's different oh my god
inside in your head but out loud you wouldn't out loud you'd be like i condemn you to die chloe
listen dabos fingers is also covering the free cities they actually just put out on god i think
it was on 420 episode 97 free cities aren't free and they explored some free cities. They explored Lorath, Kohor, Norvos, and the Daughters, right?
Myr, Lys, Tyrosh.
And we're not quite at Lys yet because I know I could talk for far too long about Lys
and far too long about Pentos and other places.
Both.
We've had two of the Davos fingers on before to discuss Jon.
I was going to say we got fingered,
but I felt like it was inappropriate.
We're leaving it.
Two of two fingers.
We're leaving it.
We had some of the fingers on.
Two of the fingers were on for Jon.
Jon got fingered, if you will.
So that was fun.
Matt and Skad came on for some
John, some Stannis, some Mance, and
I love that. That's a throwback
now as we're deep within the
realm of Jaime and a Jaime
one. We're in a feast for crows
and I am so hyped about that.
I love it. Speaking
of some of the emails that we got last
week, or was it a tweet?
Chloe was addressing the issue of Boros Blount,
whether or not he could have redemption.
And Chloe pointed out, right,
that Boros Blount is not looking so hot
in the dance epilogue.
And, you know, coincidentally enough,
this past, like, in the past, like, two weeks, right,
after Chloe put that out elio garcia actually
said something that really backs up what chloe was saying i mean i think we all kind of were like
yeah yeah for sure he definitely seems like he's dying but elio kind of confirmed that this is
definitely a very impending part of boros's life death yeah elio commented actually on our friend zionius who talked about
green beard uh a character named green beard in a storm of swords you might recognize him
we talked about him in depth in the tai roshi episode that we mentioned earlier but
zionius also elicited a response while talking about Boros Blount from Elio Garcia, who said, for what it's worth, in the original manuscript of A Feast for Crows, before George had split some things up, move some things around, do some stuff for dance, Boros Blount died.
I mean, I think that shows that that's definitely something that's on the horizon for Boros Blount.
And I was like, wow, Chloe was just talking about this.
She called it.
And it's
great that we have this sort of confirmation something elio said that i didn't explore much
was that he said george had the language to be kind of like heart failure uh so i'm kind of
wondering if he decided that being a taster was smarter not smarter but an easier way to give
boros a death that made sense a death that flowed
i mean it could have been heart failure but also from poison right yeah that's true that's true
eventually i mean like poison can what target a bunch of different parts of you or something
probably the only part i target is the liver eliana wow okay uh that is how a lot of poison does, in fact, work, I'm sure.
And so, clap, clap, clap.
Congratulations, Chloe, as usual.
Thank you.
It was right.
Thank you.
It's hard.
It's hard being so legally right. It's so hard being so legally right by the law,
but someone has to do it.
And not only is being right something I I have to do to uphold my honor,
but I also have something called the lightning round to bring you all.
And today, this lightning round is a goddamn thunderstorm.
It is long.
When Jamie ended in A Storm of Swords,
we still had a handful of chapters left in A Storm of Swords to finish.
So we're going to make this short and sweet. We're going to rush through A Storm of Swords. We still had a handful of chapters left in A Storm of Swords to finish. So we're going to make this short and sweet. We're going to rush through
A Storm of Swords, jump to
the A Feast for Crows chapters that we're
also missing out on before we
hit Jaime's first chapter.
We're also going to talk in depth about
Tyrion in A Storm of Swords,
Cersei I in A Feast for
Crows, and Cersei II in A Feast for Crows.
So buckle up. We'll lightly touch on Brienne I from A Feast for Crows and Cersei II in A Feast for Crows. So buckle up.
We'll lightly touch on Brienne I from A Feast for Crows.
Yes, very lightly throughout this chapter.
But first, we're going to start with Jon X.
Stannis, Stannis, Stannis, I guess.
Yes.
Same.
I don't know the genocide thing, man.
It kind of softened me.
That's all.
Yeah, I'm also just...
I just like, I've never been like... And I've said this before genocide thing, man. It kind of softened me. That's all. Yeah, I'm also just, meh. I just, like, I've never been
like, and I've said this before.
Anyways, Arya 13. Unable
to put the doctor to sleep, Arya heads for
Braavos. What the fuck?
I had to keep these short and sad.
Settle down. Samwell 4.
Sam must become a player in his
very own Game of Thrones at the Wall.
John 11.
Stannis makes John an offer that he can hardly
refuse except he just does because he's not a fucking sellout tyrian 11 which we'll talk about
very soon tyrian complicates his escape plan leaving a gaping power vacuum to whirl in the
chambers of the red keep chambers of secrets of poop samuel 5 stis and Aemon put pressure on Sam
John 12
the wall is John's
Sansa 7
your sister
so glad you got that
epilogue she don't speak
but she remembers
and that launches us very quickly
into Feast into the book that we're starting
my favorite of the books probably i'd say feast clash uh damn dance storm game whatever anyways
uh but feast for crows i love it so much and that starts off eliana tell us where we start
hang on i just want to say Feast Storm Dance Game Clash.
Mmm, really spicy.
You really think Clash is that bad?
It's my least favorite.
That's it.
What's up?
Prologue!
Paint trades a key for true love.
Marriage.
Marriage.
It's better to be within a dream
but collapses dead on the cobblestones instead
they're very slippery
the prophet claimants for the
salt throne
sea stone chair
begin to gather and Aaron Greyjoy feels
a king's mood on the rise
dude I forgot that they called it the salt throne
yeah I wanted to ruin your life
I said I don't know salt throne
five years big mood the captain of the guards the salt throne. Yeah, I wanted to ruin your life. I sit on the salt throne. Five years.
Big mood.
The captain then guards.
Not Jaime, but
Arya Hotha. Guards
the prince as news of Oberyn's
defeat reaches Dorne. The prince's retinue
reaches Sunspear and he must imprison
the sand snakes while deliberating over his
next moves.
Cersei won.
Cersei wakes to a living nightmare.
The patriarch of House Lannister
murdered by her demon
of a little brother. Jaime
refuses to be her hand.
Brienne won. Brienne begins
her quest seeking a girl of three and ten
with auburn hair.
Samwell won. Jon Snow
sends Sam and Gilly across the sea to try to save the
lives of princes i realized that earlier i accidentally said samuel sorry y'all aria one
valer do harris cersei too cersei's scheming seems to hit a brick wall but kyburn brings her a coin
of a different color later she argues with her uncle that springs us brings her a coin of a different color. Later, she argues with her uncle.
That springs us right into A Storm of Swords, Tyrion XI, and A Feast for Crows, Cersei I and II.
I wanted to really highlight these chapters because I feel like they're formative,
especially with how we leave Jaime in A Storm of Swords. We leave him not triumphant, but learning,
him not triumphant but learning right we leave him learning we leave him a little broken but healing and tyrian 11 a is a hell of a chapter and a feast for crows cersei one and two cersei's
first two pov chapters is just holy crap yeah woo woohoo pour some shots actually though wow
there are a lot but like in a great way like i'm you know rereading it and rereading cersei's
chapters like damn what a force what a force and there's a lot happening here right you have taisha
looming over jamie's entire plot and tyrian's the ghost
of a girl throughout a storm of swords especially for jamie we hear about taisha in very passing
about his guilt and jamie and tyrian don't reunite right once jamie returns to the capital we don't
see a reunion uh tyrian 11 is the big moment jamie is trying to spring him. It's their first reunion. Jamie shows up in
Tyrion's dark cell. And it really does make me think of that earlier storm dream that we had of
him trying to be brave and the sword and just like, it makes me think that he's really trying
to do this. And he chooses Tyrion is like, this is my new focus. Like this is why I can do this.
This is why I can be a knight.
Regarding that knighthood, right?
There's like this really great line where during the part where Jaime and Tyrion are
obviously still chummy, you know, Tyrion talks about the Blackwater and he's like, I didn't
have my big brother there to protect me.
And it's actually a really sweet line, you know, at that point, which makes all the things that come afterwards like way more sad.
But anyway, you can see that both of Jaime's siblings, like Cersei and Tyrion, right?
Both of them saw Jaime as their protector.
And like he he was very much in many ways happy to fill that role for them.
And right now he's like, I'm going to rescue him today.
I'm going to be the rescuer.
Yeah. And then, of course, as we're about to talk about, he was not the rescuer.
He was the day ruiner.
Jamie ruined everything.
This was the big reveal from Jamie that she wasn't a sex worker.
Tysha wasn't a sex worker.
Jamie didn't buy her.
She was just a girl that actually probably did love Tyrion in her 13-year-old way with her big expanded emotional range.
And Jaime was just following orders from Tywin.
Tyrion tells him, well, joke's on you, I did kill your son Joffrey.
Even though we know, the readers, that he did not.
So Jaime now believes this, kind of, as his narrative.
I think he knows in his heart, maybe not.
But Tyrion killing Tywin didn't help his case here.
Probably not.
Oh, Jaime finds out Cersei's been cheating on him.
You know, her brother, Jaime, she's been cheating on him.
Just want to put that out there.
I will say, in Cersei's defense,
they never actually had a talk that they were exclusive i honestly feel that way i literally i've always felt that way about this
i mean and to be fair she straight up kind of lays it out for him in the last couple chapters
right like last hand when she come when he gets back to king's landing she's like by the way
i hope you know this isn't how it's
gonna be anymore. We can't just go
fucking each other all the time.
It's gotta be more professional
and I don't want to.
I just think that they never really, like, laid out
the parameters
of their relationship and had that talk,
especially considering that, you know, she kind of was
in many ways forced to break
that exclusivity, not by her own choice but anyways um yeah yeah yeah like like what you were saying about tyrian
and telling jamie and that's in the moment that they're promising honesty to one another
and she's like sure i'll be honest and then he is and he isn't there's a part of me that thinks
is this a callback and we'll discuss that of course one day in Tyrion's chapters that's a callback to the two truths and the lie he says some truths right and then he lies about that
but then we come to Cersei in Feast right that's the next Lannister chapter that we get
after Tyrion's um and it picks up very very very soon after Tyrion's POV.
I love that their chapters in this book both start with them uncovering family secrets together. tunnels and passageways obviously that helped get Tyrion up and down those 200 whatever steps to Tywin's chamber um and Varys uses them and his little birds obviously use them but
Jaime discovers these exact tunnels and it's kind of hinted that maybe a hand of the king
once made these tunnels and no one really knows who that hand of the king was but Cersei in turn
discovers Shae in Tywin's bed and it turns out maybe Tywin was the one who erected these tunnels
that secretly let you put people in and out of the city and I don't know Jamie doesn't know that
they're basically his dad's tunnels as he's exploring their depths getting all the way to
the bottom and cersei pretends that shay isn't really there at all you know it's a it's kind
of heartbreaking they uncover these family secrets that they both reject for various reasons and then
jamie refuses cersei's hand job in both manners of the word. Actually, though, and it's an interesting moment because in both Tyrion's chapter and Cersei's chapter here,
both of them slap Jaime.
They're just like, we're all going to slap Jaime now.
Yeah, and A Feast for Crows really feels like it has this return
to A Game of Thrones that we're going to explore during all this.
The slapping?
A bit.
It reminds me, not in this exact circumstance, return to a game of thrones that we're going to explore during all this slapping um a bit it
reminds me not in this exact circumstance but with all of the ned stuff that we're going to talk
about today because there is a lot of ned in this chapter i didn't think there would be i thought we
had fled from dad from ned for the most part but i don't think we have i think this chapter really
does revolve around a lot of the same themes and ideas of when he was still alive
or when he was being murdered publicly executed um but for jamie especially right for jamie who's
a soldier who's come from all this war and now he's dealing with just bullshit uh it reminds me
of robert slapping cersei oh yeah i think we're gonna get a few flashbacks to a lot of that power vacuum drama that we felt when we were in Eddard's chapters.
Because we're about to have a power vacuum.
I mean, Tywin ran everything.
And I mean, Cersei, by the end of this, is ordering the Kettlebacks to kill the sleeping guards, right?
And it's kind of just a mess.
Once we get into Cersei, too too comes before we get into Jaime one.
So we just keep getting more and more of
Cersei's mess on top of all this.
But, what is
happening in King's Landing?
Who even knows?
Chaos is
the latter, you know?
Holy shit.
Cersei too.
Try as she might, she could not seem to bring Lord Tywin's face to mind
without seeing that silly little half-smile
and remembering the foul smell coming off his corpse.
She wondered whether Tyrion was somehow behind that as well.
It is small and cruel, like him.
Yeah, that makes sense, Cersei.
The biggest problem with Cersei
and Feast I was just talking about with someone
today is that
she is everything
that she is suspecting she's like
projecting everything she suspects onto
everyone else and going well that's what I would
do actually it's what I am doing but
it's what I would do it's what I
would do you know she's really just
like playing that 4D chess in her mind.
She's got to chill.
They attend the funeral for Tywin.
Cersei is taking on his persona.
Now Tywin, she thinks the mob must have its show.
It was a nuisance.
She had offices to fill, a war to win, a realm to rule.
Her father would have understood that.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
I guess, but...
Jaime wears all white to Morn.
He's all in on his Kingsguard-like garb,
and Cersei thinks Tywin would have hated it,
because Tywin preferred Jaime and Lannister crimson and gold.
And then there's a part where Cersei asks Kevin,
you know, now that she's been rejected by Jaime to be Hand,
he refuses and tells her, you know, you should name Rowan or Tarly.
And then outs that he basically knows about the incest.
Wild. Very wild moment.
Especially because, like, the wine is dropping from his beard,
like a teardrop almost.
How do you take someone seriously with that?
You don't.
I can't.
Why would you describe it?
It's magnified in this moment, George.
I forgot that that happened in that chapter.
I understand this is a really serious moment.
As soon as the wine droplet quivered from his beard, I was like, whoa.
I felt that, George.
I felt it.
Kevin, wipe yourself.
But I feel, more than anything, more than a spicy moment,
I feel Jamie won in A Feast for Crows.
It's a big setup chapter.
There's a lot of storylines that are stemming from this.
We're going to explore a lot of them throughout this book with jamie but first jamie watches over his father's corpse and relives the moments
and investigation after tywin's death and what role he has in it he also has a very
tender ish moment with his son it's a moment it's a moment uh and again jamie of course is in his kinkard garb he's
standing vigil for tywin and there's a lot of great imagery mostly just of the sept in this
chapter but it starts off with one of those uh at dusk the interior of the great sept of balor
turned dim and eerie the last light of day slanted down through the high windows washing the towering likenesses of
the seven in a red gloom around their altars scented candles flickered while steep shadows
gathered in the transepts and crept silently across the marble floors the echoes of the even
songs died away as the last murders as the last mourners were departing there's a lot of religious
framework in this chapter, whether it's
background work, whether it's very present in the current conversation going on. Eliana really
outlines it later on as we're going to move through this chapter. But I do like that the way
George describes this, the light descending like gloom, which he often uses in the story when he's
describing thick smokiness. It evokes the image of moats and frankincense and myrrh that are lingering on the air and that dim quiet.
And the idea of thick smoke and red light beaming down on the sept is an interesting thought to think about.
Especially with what might lie below King's Landing.
Just putting that out there.
I was like, huh.
Red light coming through the windows or red glo Landing. Just putting that out there. I was like, huh. Red light coming through
the windows or red gloom. That's a good point.
We obviously know Cersei
burning the Tower of the Hand is to come
so maybe it's more about that. I also just really
like the word evensongs. I'm not gonna lie.
It reminds me of our girl.
But what about our boys?
Our brothers Bael and Slaan
and Loras Tyrell?
I don't. I just thought that would be an interesting transition
anyways they stay behind for a bit
they ask Jamie yo when was the last time that you slept
they're like no one can stand vigil 7 days and 7 nights
and Jamie's like I last slept when my dad was alive
and there's a part of me that kind of
is reminiscent I'm about to spoil American Gods here
for a second for all of you
so skip forward about like
30 seconds to a minute if you don't want
it spoiled but there's a part of me that
thought of
that idea of like the standing
over staying awake sacrificing yourself
for like your father or whatever
and that family and
ties and you know of course
Odin did that for himself but in american gods
right um shadow does that yeah it reminds me a bit of that actually that's a great call out but
it also reminds me of shiva in general sitting shiva in judaism casseroles get brought flowers
no i don't me either because i'm not from that religion but george obviously is inspired by a lot
of real world religious ceremony well he's playing with a lot of these right i mean we have different
religions whether it's valeria ashi whether you're in the north whether in the south there's just
something different some different even if it's the same religion but they practice different
events or different things right like christianity being
an umbrella for example that feels a little bit present in this and i would love that to be
explored more however i understand that would add several more pages to each chapter of world
building so don't worry about it george just knock that one to the side you know what i mean i have other worries before that in the series so
loris offers to stand in jamie's place in this tribute and jamie of course refuses and he says
tywin wasn't your father but jamie's feeling some immense guilt here not just over that
yeah we have this line in jamie's interiority of you did not kill over that. Yeah, we have this line in Jaime's interiority of,
you did not kill him, I did. Tyrion may have loosed the crossbow bolt that slew him, but I
loose Tyrion. Leave me! Ugh, so dramatic. Baelin acquiesces and convinces Loras,
who's about to protest, but of course wins out over him. Alonewin is smelling oh not so fresh he's smelling
sickly sweet the weight of his armor the weight of jamie's armor is starting to hurt his back
he's been standing so long his legs are feeling numb he feels his lost hand more than the rest
of his body at this point hungry for a sword hungry for vengeance hungry for killing because
this is
truly kind of how jamie's getting through this death kind of how he's grieving honestly he's
especially also blaming berries uh for tywin's death not just himself and tyrian the blood is
on his hands as much as mine he meant to say but the word stuck in his throat whatever varies did i made him do debatable
debatable i mean as we learn from varies in the epilogue uh much later for dance that you know
he kind of had a plan right that's what we're seeing for various he did have a plan after all
jamie's operating under the thought now that tyrian did kill his son joffrey right like that
is kind of he's like, wow, I guess
he did kill him because originally he was like, I'm team Tyrion, he would never do that. And then
Tyrion was like, to his face, fuck you, I did it, even though all of us know he didn't. Thanks to
that confession. And this feels obviously more like guilt than anything, right? It's not just
I killed Tywin. Jaime's killed people.
He's killed Aerys.
He's killed people.
We know Jaime has killed people.
But we do see other people indirectly add to their father's death, right?
Who suffer from this kind of guilt, like Sansa, for example.
But it's also showing Jaime almost attempting to progress for once.
He's learning from his mistakes.
Even though there are other people that may have been
involved. You can't blanketly call this situation a bad or good situation. There were too many
players in it, in my opinion. I would say my little brother too, so I wouldn't really, I don't know,
I wouldn't say it's a bad decision. Of course he's going to try to save his little brother,
but he's taking full blame for the consequences of his actions for the deaths
at the same time he's also realizing wow very skirting the law with how tyrian was freed
skirting the law with how he enacted the springing of tyrian maybe not good maybe maybe this is bad
maybe when i do bad things or mix with bad puppeteers, bad things happen, is what Jamie is saying here.
And I think that's a kind of a really big deal for Jamie.
The realization that, oh,
hanging out with bad people makes bad things happen.
Yeah, like choosing bad choices.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think we're going to see some of that a bit in this chapter
as he starts to realize that.
You know, you were talking about Jaime maybe not really being at fault, right?
And they add to their suffering.
Something that I find interesting about Jaime taking on the burden of Tywin's death on himself
and making it his own fault,
obviously part of it is him trying to feel more control of the situation.
That's part of why people sometimes do that but it's very interesting to me in the context of
his conversation with loris tyrell uh i don't know two to three chapters before this jamie chapter
two to three jamie chapters before this one you know he's telling loris and he's trying to convince
him yo brienne's not at fault for redley's death i mean mean, she's really not. But then in that moment, Loras starts to
wonder, he's like, wait, hang on. If Brienne's innocent, then what about Robar and Emin?
And Jaime tries to alleviate Loras's guilt and being like, if I were in your position,
I would have done the same thing, right? So it's sort of interesting that he's doing the opposite
here and punishing himself as opposed to showing that same generosity to himself that he did to Loras.
I think that's true. A lot of people do that, right?
He's piling this guilt, time and stuff, onto himself.
And you were saying something about how this is Jaime learning because his entire life he's been carrying that burden of Aerys' death.
He doesn't really regret it.
I don't know that he necessarily should but like he
does it's something he feels righteous about he doesn't really feel guilt about it but at the same
time he still hasn't really reckoned with any of the guilt or fallout of trying to throw a boy out
the window right that actually is his fault and like he's not taking that on himself necessarily
the same way that he's doing so with tywin right now yeah it does feel like a lot of projecting and we'll obviously go on
talking about that projecting but there's so many layers of it here like he doesn't
this is the first time he's finally decided hey i can have control in this thing wow maybe this
was a shitty choice it's almost refreshing. I wouldn't say it's fully
refreshing. I think Jaime has a very long way to go, even in Feast. We'll go on with that. I'm sure
I will tell you all about my feelings on that eventually. But he does reminisce during this.
He reminisces on accosting Varys in his chambers with a dagger before all of this went down when he said you need to free
my brother tyrian after pricking his neck with a dagger jamie reveals to varys that he doesn't
care whether tyrian's guilty or not and quotes the lannister creed uh pay debts blah blah gold gober
and it's not their house words though guys yeah there's like this great parallel though again
between jamie and tyrian here like because tyrian as he's escaping is basically telling like various
like i don't value your life as much as i value mine like he that's not actually the words but
he does use similar words very similar and jamie kind of does the exact same thing just a few
moments before that based on his memories i'm just thinking like various must be so tired like of these brothers just being like i don't
give a shit about your life yeah uh various doesn't give a shit about anyone's life i mean
that's the thing is obviously we know what dragon various has true race right uh and he claims to
be for the realm and all that but he's very calm you know he acts like he's very stressed and he's
not the people are like out there all we choose democracy and various is like what sorry what was
that did someone say black fire i also choose the black fires that too is my vote as there is
spider so jamie hadn't slept since the night that Tywin died, as we already chatted about.
And he just kept reliving Tyrion's smile and words.
You poor, stupid, blind, crippled fool.
He'd snarled in a voice thick with malice.
Cersei's a lying whore.
She's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moonboy for all I know.
And I am the monster they all say I am.
Yes, I killed your vile son.
So Tywin, actually dead, not in a coma.
But, and I think Chloe's going to talk about this a little more.
There's a lot of that grief and self-blame in Jaime's not sleeping.
That just reminds me a little bit of Caitlyn stark at bran's bedside it's a little different right because it's
kind of funny because it's jaime with his parent versus like his spawn i'm gonna use that word
and versus caitlyn anyway jaime thinks that tyrian hadn't said he meant to kill their father and
hints that he would have stopped and killed him.
And then he has this line where he thinks,
then I would be the Kinslayer, not him.
And as he stands, Jaime wonders, like,
where Varys and Tyrion are now,
imagining them with a flagon of Arbor Gold together at one point. And I'm like, oh, interesting.
Interesting.
The wine of lies.
Lies and...
Dwarven? Dwarven? Gold? Interesting. Interesting. The wine of lies. Lies and... Dornish red?
Gold?
Jaime wonders if Tyrion also killed Varys, if he was capable of that.
He had led an expedition searching for Tyrion below in all of the passages that lead downward,
and truly feels the loss of his hand while he crawls.
As we know, they don't find Tyrion.
He's long gone.
Just darkness, dust, and rats and dragons lurking down below
because there was an unsurprisingly lot of dragon imagery lingering down there.
There was an oven that was shaped like a dragon, rotten iron.
It sounds really cool.
I'm like, can I craft it?
How many iron nuggets will it take an
animal crossing do i need clay for it also maybe maybe and can i customize it can it be red and
black or black and red that's a great question you know can we customize it red and black or
the other all the other colors of dany's dragons important to know how many customization kits does it take. Oh my god. And so
there is also a dragon mosaic
on the ground, down on the very bottom
floor, in black and red,
which I thought was an interesting
detail. It would be
hopefully useful when we get to
the Arianne, Aegon, Sand Snake
plot coming up in the Winds of Winter,
and it makes me wonder if maybe
I don't know, something has to happen down in this dragon mosaic maybe someone uses it to uh climb up and perform some
blood and cheese style murder during or before the sack of kings landing 2.0 maybe it's john
connington tyene nim no one knows uh or maybe ariana and agon died down there maybe we get that show carol and larry treatment on uh
jamie and cersei with them no one knows carol and larry uh jamie and cersei from the tv show
game of thrones gotcha gotcha the hbo experience it's really an experience
uh clatterford's on board with it being the bad show now the dragon seems to say that they
know him and rhaegar's voice and then jamie starts reminiscing about when he bid rhaegar farewell
uh rhaegar of course was in his iconic black armor with rubies on the breastplate and jamie's asking
to go with him my royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin robert he wants you
close so lord tywin cannot harm him.
I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour.
Jaime's anchor had risen up in his throat.
I am not a crutch.
I am a king.
I am a knight of the Kingsguard.
Then guard the king, Ser Jon Darion snapped at him.
When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey.
Rhaegar put his hand on jaime's shoulder
when this battle's done i mean to call a council changes will be made i meant to do it a long ago
but well it does no good to speak of roads not taken we shall talk when i return those were the
last words rhaegar targaryen ever spoke to him. First of all, Jaime should have known the red flags when Rhaegar was like, we'll talk when I return.
Jaime, how did you not know that that means he's going to die?
That's how it always goes.
He's never going to return.
We've all seen the movies.
That's how it goes.
Duh, Jaime.
But you can see that he's trying to be a little bit like Rhaegar in a way
he's like yeah changes will be made
Jamie's here like changes will be made
trying
anyway so in that memory there were
two armies already one outside the gates and
another on the trident and
Rhaegar rode forth Jamie's like
alright yeah turns out there were changes after the
battle a fucking lot of them.
Including, you know, him remembering Aerys' hubris, thinking that, yeah, having Jaime near is going to keep me safe.
And Jaime jokes about this to his father's corpse.
And he's like, oh, interesting.
The corpse seems to be smiling.
It was queer, but he felt no grief.
Where are my tears?
Where is my rage?
Jaime Lannister had never lacked for rage father he told the
corpse it was you who told me tears were a mark of weakness in a man so you cannot expect that i
should cry for you so i found this passage really interesting because of course there's a lot to be
said about the source of trauma for house lannister in general being one another and how they act with
each other like all of them are just like terrified of each other oh no my sibling is gonna think this
about me and my father whatever right but all of them seem to be unable to cry or imagine grief
as anything but manifested through rage rather than like maybe grief comes in many different forms friends right like like what
you're feeling can be grief too circe in her first chapter in this book as she finds out that tywin
is dead she's also wondering like where are my tears and she's just taking it out and barking
orders on everyone around her and like that's a manifestation of grief but she's like maybe i
should be crying over my dad
we sure as hell know that tyrian doesn't cry over tywin but like same as how jamie's wondering like
he's like oh man i can't cry over my dad and then he blames tywin for basically scaring the tears
out of him it's similar language to back then in in a few chapters ago right where joffrey's dead
and jamie's wondering where his tears and rage are
for the death of his son and it actually comes a little bit before meeting up with his father again
if i'm not mistaken it does remind me a bit of sansa's reaction to joffrey's death as well
how she can't understand why she's actually upset when she should be happy feelings are weird that's
why we have books a bunch of people come
to pay respects to tywin lannister some are solemn but some jamie suspects were happy cersei's
funeral chapter as we see shows them making privy jokes in the background some of the lesser lords
grand maester pie cell is not okay he speaks of tywin as a great man. Pywin, our ship. It's a good ship.
He wore no crown, yet he was all a king should be. Also, Pycelle has no beard right now,
if you recall, because of Tyrion. Jaime thinks of that cruelty, and he projects losing his hand
onto it. We get a good amount of imagery about that as well from Pycelle. Pycelle's beard had been
magnificent, white as snow, soft as lamb's wool, a luxuriant growth that covered cheeks and chin
and flowed down almost to his belt. The grand maester had been wont to stroke it when he
pontificated. It had given him the air of wisdom, concealed all manner of unsavory things the loose skin dangling behind the old man's
jaw the small quarrelous mouth and missing teeth warts and wrinkles and age spots too numerous to
count i feel bad for paisal and his beard i actually do in this moment it's kind of compared
here to tywin like to the rotting of Tywin. What do you think about it?
I see that.
Yeah, like it's just hiding the flesh rotting beneath because Jaime himself thinks, you know, this is the end of this old man.
Yeah, but like it takes a long time to grow a beard.
And like, obviously, his just like his cells aren't growing here the way they used to.
Anyways, we know this because Ty Sol is trying to regrow it and he's failing.
Then he goes on a spiel
about all the horrible things that he'd
seen back in his day.
I do actually
think that this is in fact a riff on that trope,
but then he talks about very real
things that are probably going to happen,
that are probably like pretending things
that are going to happen in this series that
you know, I do think that Greyscale is important, right?
Like, he recounts the Great Plague, taking half of the city of Oldtown and three-fourths of the Citadel,
and the measures that Lord Hightower at that time took, Lord Quentin Hightower.
They were pretty extreme. He's, like, burning ships, closing gates,
but also just slaying people who tried to run from the city.
And then
because of how extreme he was,
Quentin Hightower was killed after the plague.
But Pycelle's like,
Quentin Hightower did what was needed.
Your father was that sort of man as well.
A man who did what was needed.
Interesting.
I don't know what that phrase means.
What you think it means, Pycelle? Yeah, I don't know what that phrase means. What you think it means, Paisel?
Yeah, I don't know if that's what I think
about the word needed. Yeah, I don't know
if it was necessarily needed.
Some of it was a lot.
Interestingly enough, Quentin Hightower,
he and his son got
mailer Targaryen, you know, the one that
got torn apart by people on a horse
during the old
Princess and the Queen-esque times back in the
dance a poor baby yes the young targaryen kid that got ripped apart by people on a horse not
good stuff not good i don't know i don't know if uh was it worth all that who were his corporate
sponsors you know oh my god in the plague in the pandemic i just want to know as as a professional in the pandemic
wow um paisell explains that taiwan's smiling because the flesh that's drying and that actually
pulls his lips into a smile science whatever a drying yeah paisell we're not here for science
we're here for literature and then paisell himself is like you're right he starts to tear up
and excuses himself then jamie thinks that you know paicel's dying and that's probably why
seriously thinks he's useless but then he's like then again seriously also thinks that everyone is
useless or treasonous including me and you know is jamie wrong about himself being quite treasonous at this time, based
on his current guilt and line of thinking?
Debatable.
Yeah, it turns out that Cersei's also been blaming Ilyn Payne for Tyrion's escape
because the dungeons are his domain, and Jaime's really tempted to confess, but doesn't.
He ends up interrogating Rennifer Longwaters, who explains there's royal blood in his
veins from a princess she was
the fairest treasure of the maiden vault lord oakenfist the great admiral lost his heart to her
though he was married to another she gave their son the bastard name of waters in honor of his
father and he grew up to be a great knight as did his son who put the long before the waters, so men might know he was not basely born himself.
So yes, I have a little dragon in me.
Yes, this is the story of Oakenfist and Elena Targaryen, one of the Maidenvault sisters,
if you all remember our Maidenvault Patreon episode.
Jaime responds very sarcastically to this.
He's like, um, I don't know, Waters is pretty
common, he thinks, in his head.
And Rennifer probably
isn't descended from a princess, but more
likely a knight. But, I don't
know that I agree with that. It's actually technically
both, um,
because Rennifer's actually
speaking the truth here. It's
John Waters, son of Alan
Valerian and Elena Targaryen as as you said
and he did in fact become a famous knight so it's both a knight and a princess you know there's
something here that you can see jamie's sort of disdain for those who try to claim royal blood
or anything about their station that that sort of classism showing again and i don't know it's
really something for him to dismiss this man who has
actually more royal blood than the current king just saying than tommen tommen lannister
baratheon and there's a lot of irony playing out here in a couple ways and i do think that there's
a little more in here right that we're gonna see in later books as we see a lot more targaryen
blooded folks
popping up i think that's something that's been drilled into us in fire and blood and
and the dance that you know there's turns out are a lot more targaryens than we thought there were
um and this they're everywhere yeah this this tension between individuality versus family
how much like does your name and blood mean when it comes to your identity and i
of course think that's a huge question for the lanester siblings because a lot of what they've
inherited is not just genetics or blood it's this trauma because of their brother it's something
that's very shared in their familial experience yeah tywin really fucked them up he did and that's
also tywin's own trauma right that's something that we've discussed
so jb is like anyways yes lost prisoner go renifer renifer discusses rugen the undergaller
who's unkempt unshaven course of speech he'd been there a while since renifer had joined and was
appointed by aries but wasn't always. Did not have a good attendance record.
His reports went to the Master of
Coin, or to the Master of Whisperers,
the Chief, and
the King's Justice. Rugen
was only available when
needed. Apparently the Black
Cells were little used. He only
remembers Lord Stark,
Grand Maester Pycelle, and
Tyrion. Also, three common men who were sent to
the night's watch if you recall them roars biter jockin allegedly allegedly of course so the big
joke here as we all might know is that rugen is very the amount of energy that's being spent on
finding rugen is hysterical.
He's obviously implicated the gold coin from Tyrell, House Tyrell, if you remember from the last Cersei episode when the coin was dug up as a prop from Qyvern to say, hey, the Tyrells really do have it out for you.
This was to sow further seeds of chaos because we see in the epilogue that Varys kills Kevin and Pycelle.
Chaos, bitch. Ladder it.
Yeah, and that's something we'll talk about later, but like, Varys
is the one who's actually playing 4D
chess. Yep.
The only one.
Anyways, Rundifer explains the hierarchy
of the jailers and responsibilities. You guys,
I said galler earlier. It's jailer.
It's not spelled the
way you think it would be uh that's the english language for all of you uh then renifer reads
the current prisoners from a book there's four on the first level one on the second also your
brother but not anymore jamie's like wow interesting the prison industrial complex
and he thinks of all the people that they're just like paying to maintain the imprisonment of only six people.
And to break it down, because this is in Jamie's chapter, there's 20 turnkeys, six under jailers, a chief under jailer, a jailer, and the king's justice.
All for only six people.
Yeah, Jamie is like, like wow this is actually our industrial
complex it's not just a industrial complex this is specifically the lannister funded industrial
complex and jamie's realizing this is the system that his family's just allowed to let happen
no auditing no nothing and you know there's the little finger
debt scheme theory and a lot of other theories that have popped up of just little things that
were happening in the king's landing council and jamie kind of just learned the truth about who
the puppeteers are of king's landing right he learned it from very first hand he's learning
that little finger uh also did not have any of his
friendship in mind during this, and it's
just kind of like Ned learned
from this. He learned
I did warn you not to trust
me. These people were not to
be trusted. Yeah, you're right.
I think it's interesting that Jaime's learning it from Varys,
not from Littlefinger.
For now, though, Jaime's just expanding his
questioning. for no reason
actually
to the turnkeys
and Renifer's like I already did that
also they're dead
by your command
and Jamie's like what
then he realizes his own men
were the ones used
to kill them it was the Kettleblacks
then he lays into Boros Blount but also Osmund especially later own men were the ones used to kill them. It was the Kettle Blacks. Then he
lays into Boros Blount, but also Osmund,
especially later, because he actually has some
control over them. He's like,
I don't know, we were just following orders. This is what Cersei
said to do. She's like, make them sleep forever.
And Jaime's
like, ugh. He remembers those corpses
and thinks he told fairies
no one was supposed to be harmed in the escape.
And Osmund's like, uh uh they were for sure guilty and you know as we all know and find out right
and we also know this from tyrian's chapter right that very spiked their wine so that
they'd sleep through it and then jamie just remembers tyrian's words again yep it's all
his fault so jamie is questioning why theblacks were so hasty to kill these people,
kind of turning it back on them
as though this is a real interrogation.
And Osmund invokes the Queen's orders
and says that on his word as a sworn brother,
this is where they came from.
Jamie once more says,
hey, next time you get ridiculous orders,
you come to me first.
There's a handful of reasons.
This is super interesting.
I'll keep it basic.
Most of these reasons are projection and deflection.
One of them is, well, it's kind of Jamie's fault that these guys are dead.
That's a very long way of analyzing it, right?
That's like a very broad stroke, but they died because of Jaime.
But if they died because of Jaime, and if it's
his fault that these people died, is it also
his fault then that Tywin died?
Exactly.
So the Cadillacs and Cersei are banging,
and Jaime's
deflecting all the attention on what
actually even happened here, because he
committed kind of a crazy thing, like it's not treason per se but he assisted in a murder but he didn't he was
assisting in an escape yeah i i do think that like a that's interesting b i admire jamie's commitment
to this farce.
That's a lot of effort to be like, yeah, I'm gonna question all of these people
as though this is fucking real at all.
And
you know, you were talking about the Ned
parallels, but now that I think about it, it's kind of
like a funny
parody of it, a caricature
of Ned's investigation of the- Oh, who
killed Jon Arrynaron the hand of the
king now we're like oh who killed tywin lannister the hand of the king and jamie's like it was
i know what happened i was like a big part of it but he's still like playing the role of detective
whereas ned actually was doing that anyway yeah i like to as we keep creeping forward with that, we're going to see it twisted right on its ass and see the opposite of, wow, this is who would condemn Jamie Lannister for being Jamie Lannister.
I think we're just going to see some very obvious patterns of that. I'm excited for that.
yeah but also what he's doing here with the kettle blacks and blount right uh telling them you have to come to me when people tell you shit like just go murder these people and that's something that
he had actually said before to some of the other kings guard during that meeting in like i don't
know i think the second to last chapter storm right he's trying to solve that problem and like
consolidate the issue because there's too many managers and
bosses right now while he's been gone and he's like you guys are getting ridiculous orders like
i don't know beating 13 year old girls and murdering innocent people for like out of spite
yeah yeah there's a lot of that as we keep creeping forward jamie is still very much
bootlicking the system but he's also like fuck the system it's like come on jamie you're so close
yeah he's like so close abolish prisons but wait abolish wait that's jamie right now
not if it benefits the lannisters though um. Jaime is rethinking these things that we keep talking about during his entire vigil.
The words echoed in his head in the dimness of Baelor's sept.
Above him, all the windows had gone black, and he could see the faint light of distant stars.
The sun had set for good and all.
The stench of death grew stronger despite
the scented candles. The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the days below. The smell reminded
Jaime Lannister of the past below the golden tooth where he had won a glorious victory in the first
days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike,
as once they had been feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the trident.
How much can a crown be worth when a crow can dine upon the king?
Yo, that's like the book title.
It's the whole entire thing.
It's the thing.
It's the thing that the book is.
Especially because right now, you know, the crows are also circling the sept.
Jamie's like, good, the crows
owe Tywin a lot of
homage, considering that
how many dead bodies he fed
them.
And now Tywin's grinning, and
now Jamie's laughing aloud
quite madly.
In Circe 1, we get this little passage,
kind of relates to Jamie laughing aloud madly.
Should I scream and tear my hair?
They said Catelyn Stark clawed her own face to bloody ribbons
when the phrase slew her precious Rob.
Would you like that, father?
She wanted to ask him.
Or would you want me to be strong?
I love this framed against the tears
as we talked about and how frustratingly hard they are to come for jamie uh the red wedding
is kind of haunting the lannisters pages now as they get dealt their very own hand of grief
because their victory over the starks came at this price this is the price for this joffrey
and tywin dead armies Armies decimated.
The stain of tyranny.
It's not going great for them.
Their long-term investment is not paying off at all.
And again, now we are back to the investigation.
Jaime had Ser Adam Marbrand search for Tyrion on the Street of Silk.
And he thinks of the gold cloaks, instead spending time with
sex workers, and as he's thinking
about this, his thoughts suddenly, like, interestingly
start to wander to Brienne,
and he's like, um, I wonder where she is.
Hmm. Why?
Interesting. Interesting that
Jaime would think of Brienne while
he's thinking of people having sex, but
I will say that, okay,
on Jaime's part, in in general this was a clever
strategy to buy time what think about fucking brianna tart that too but also just sending them
to the street of silk hmm okay okay okay you're right local economy he prays father give her
strength and then wonders if it means god or tywin not that it mattered they never listened either one the
warrior had been jamie's god since he was old enough to hold a sword other men might be fathers
sons husbands but never jamie lannister whose sword was as golden as his hair he was a warrior
and that was all he would ever be poor jamie poor Jamie. I'll buy your stuff, Jamie.
I'll buy your turnips.
Jamie's like, I'm just a jock.
There's this line in Circe too
that I feel like really encompasses
a lot of Jamie's issues.
It's, you cannot eat love
nor buy a horse with it
nor warm your halls on a cold night.
She heard him tell Jamie once
when her brother had been no older than tommen
you know when you read this you think this is something that tywin maybe told cersei when you
start to read that line out loud but then you get to the end where you realize at age eight
jamie was told love was worthless jamie was programmed not to love. His aversion to Brienne completely shows
this. It was like a Pavlovian
exercise, right, to psychologically
tie him to Cersei
more than he already was from
birth, and
it makes me think of how
Tommen or Joffrey might have grown up,
how messed up they would have been,
and Myrcella. People think Myrcella
is better off because she's
away from all that but is she really that better off i mean she's getting part of herself sliced
off this book and i think it's fair to say this is how a lot of targaryens probably grew up
right their parentage was more public less scorn happened for it but also that scorn was from fear it was from dragons like you know how
high-end designer bags are made out of like slave labor and stuff and then you get a knockoff bag
that has like maybe two different seams or maybe a quote on the bottom or a printing on the bottom that's it targaryens versus lannisters baby that's what
that is yeah absolutely and i think there's a lot of good points in here of like as you were saying
they were taught from an early age love's shitty uh no wonder he was like maybe i can depend on
love from my family uh in the weirdest way that he could possibly get it.
There's a lot of the Lannisters aspiring to be Targaryens.
And I think we get a lot of that in Cersei's chapters and her insight into Tywin as a parent.
And we'll get to that at some point.
I can't wait for those.
She's crazy as hell.
It's great.
They just, the Lannisters overcompensate professionally.
That's their whole thing. Yeah's great. They just, the Lannisters overcompensate professionally. That's their whole thing.
Yeah. Yeah. They do.
So Jaime considers
confessing to Cersei
but remembers how well
it went last time he told the truth with
Tyrion and just remembers
everything again. Feels all the emotions.
Interesting stuff is happening
here in Cersei and then in Jaime.
Suffering guilt from Shae is where Cersei is and suffering guilt from Tysha, but in much different ways.
Cersei's refusing to believe that her father, the man she attributed her entire worldly aspirations to,
is actually the same type of monster that all the other men in her life were.
She can't handle that, so she covers it up, literally, physically,
and has them get rid of Shay's body. She threatens the Kettleblacks if anyone finds out that she was
there, and she kills the guards that let, quote unquote, were drugged. Tyrion escaped, because if
no one can prove it, Cersei never has to confront it. And this is what Cersei does. It's what she's
been doing for the past few books
she's been shoving women in holes to pretend they aren't a problem or not there right you have jane
pool felice and now uh melora heatherspoon the og and hell may as well put marjorie in that list
because she's a common you know and for jamie and tyrian 11 he decided he had to be bigger than hiding this from Tyrion for once,
what he usually would have done, and confessed to this crime that not a single person knew.
But then he blames the consequences on that act on himself when, like you and I have discussed,
I don't know, Tyrion was kind of a bomb waiting to be set off yeah there was no good time to tell tyrian
except for like maybe right after it happened and being honest up front that was the time and that's
past yeah and as you said it was a bomb waiting to be set off not only just because of tyrian but
also it's set up like that in the narrative right we're getting hints of it from jamie's own
perspective since i don't know even even Clash, right? Doesn't
he say something more or less to Catelyn about this? And so it's all building up to this
moment. And that moment for Tyrion, right, is a huge, huge turning point for him and
his story. But it also, in a way, is a turning point for Jaime, right? His character becomes
disillusioned and jaded in a different way than it's been this whole time.
It does in a way remind me of another couple of siblings that we know.
You might remember this back when Lady was alive.
Just to get real sad.
You might remember this.
Sansa.
Why am I this way?
Sansa shifts the blame from Lady and the consequences from the stuff happening on the Trident to associate it with the Queen and Arya, right?
She says, the Queen had done it.
She was the one to hate.
Her and Arya.
Nothing bad would have happened except for Arya.
But here, Jaime is taking the blame on himself.
Yeah, and I think that Jaime shifting the blame onto himself, it kind of very much reminds me again of Jon Snow.
It's a very Jon thing to do, to be like, it was my fault. I did this.
And, you know, I think there is a big part of it, as we said earlier, like, Jamie taking the blame helps him feel a little bit more in control of the situation where he's, like, very lost.
He has no control. He's losing the hand that very much
defined him for a long time but also he's doing it to punish himself because he's like at least
this is something not just for tywin's death right um but also as he realizes for the first time
he had long suspected it that's why it cups keeps coming up in his own chapters in storm and even
like that hint earlier on like that this is going to be a
hurtful revelation for Tyrion I think this has been eating at him for like what years and he's
like it's 20 years well not 20 but 10 years 15 more than that more than yeah like about 15 years
and he's like been like this is fine right and he even tells her he's like it's fine right i mean
she was basically the same thing right she's only after your golden tears like what are you
fucking kidding me he knew the whole time it wasn't okay and and all of those consequences
come to head and thus he refuses to sleep yeah because if he slept he might dream this reminds
me of eddard 15 in a game of thrones flashback holy crap uh when he slept he dreamed dark
disturbing dreams of blood and broken promises the chapter that ended eddard's arc the chapter
that led the dead end investigation into twin cest leads here where jamie himself is trying to
separate himself from twin cest yeah but even with that like it's so interesting because jamie
and circe's chapters are so tied in a way like it contrasts so well with circe's opening chapter
in feast she's sleeping at first it opens with her sleeping, right, in a dream, and then she wakes up and she's like oh shit, my dad's
dead? And she's like
I wish actually I were asleep right now
and that this were all a bad dream.
And Jamie, like,
fears his guilt and
Tyrion in his dreams.
Cersei's also fearing Tyrion
appearing in her dreams, but for different reasons.
Yeah.
Very similar, but yet not but also is
at midnight a bunch of septons come in some are in crystal songs they're not actually
but it's kind of phrased that way and i want to read it that way we actually truthfully get
in my opinion quite a good glimpse at religious ceremony in the Seven Kingdoms. I know we kind of graphed our real-world religion onto it,
but it is different, and we're getting some more details on that.
The several hundred septons doing devotions come in through the father's doors.
Then we have septas, seven abreast, and they're singing.
They're coming from the mother's doors.
Then we have the silent sisters.
They're coming down single file from the stranger steps and their faces are hooded and then we have a host of brothers in rough spun robes some are wearing actually the iron hammer
of the smith and they all actually make a circuit of the sept and they worship at each of the altars
they make a sacrifice and sing a hymn jamie closes his eyes to listen and then realizes he's more tired than he thought and launches into a flashback.
The last time he held a vigil, he was 15, no armor, only a white tunic, and it was a much smaller set.
In the morning, his knees were bloody and Arthur Dayne said,
That's part of being a knight, kid.
Blood is the seal of our devotion i feel like that'll
be significant one day yeah right i think so multiple meanings then dawn the sword taps him
on the shoulder and it's so sharp that jamie gets some small cuts but alas he rises as a knight
the young lion not the kingslayer but that that was long ago, and that boy was dead.
And again, the boy is dead, but is the man born?
Kill him.
Kill the boy.
Ugh, there's some sad here.
The young lion.
It reminds me of Sansa, once again.
There's a lot of that disillusioned dreamer quality about this.
And I thought my song was beginning that day but it was almost done
just rings so true here for jamie i mean there was life afterwards right it was for a long time
he wasn't lifting living it now he's like wait but maybe i should try again well it's been a while
since we've done a fashion hour and i think we need to break right into it because there is some crazy fashion happening in these chapters
it is like avant-garde death um it turns out funerals are where you want to flex your best
outfits and we start with cersei she's wearing an old gown of black velvet lined with air mine
it's notable that in her own chapters she talks about for how for Tyrion's funeral she would wear a scarlet and gold outfit
dress with her best rubies which a I want to be like get it girl but also this kind of shows
Cersei did her grieving before in Cersei one and two the funeral's a total political event for her
it's a performance her judgment of Jamie's beard,
forcing Tommen to pray and behave better,
all kind of shows that.
It's her controlling the situation at best how she can.
And knowing now isn't the time for her crazy gowns
is a good indicator of where her headspace is, right?
She's like, now's not the time to wear some sort of boobie dress.
Yeah, and I mean, she's always shown quite a great aptitude for picking the clothing for the occasion.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to see her rubies return.
Don't know if I want it to be about killing Tyrion, but we'll see.
We'll see.
There's a line.
Tommen wore cloth of gold beneath his sable mantle.
As we end the chapter, especially,
Storm's end gets brought back up into the game.
Tommen's legitimacy is kind of made imperative, right?
As far as holding and not relying on the Tyrells via Cersei.
And the power is still with the Baratheon Lannister regime here.
The gold and the black are very big points of that.
Yeah, they're still there, and
that's where his power allegedly derives from.
Allegedly.
Allegedly. But we know it
comes from Jaime.
We get this line from the books.
And it's had Jaime
stood at vigil, his one good hand
curled around the hilt of a tall
golden greatsword whose point rested
on the floor. The hooded cloak he wore was as white as freshly fallen snow and the scales of his long hubbub
were mother of pearl chased with gold lord tywin would have wanted him in lannister gold and crimson
she thought it always angered him to see jamie all in white her brother was growing his beard
again as well he might have at least waited till
father's bones were interred beneath the rock. So this is from Cersei's chapter. Jaime is
legitimately cutting himself away from the Lannister look here and it's showing finally.
This is the farthest he's been from that vision other than being on the road with his head shaved, etc. And his hand cut off.
And his silence in these chapters is also very loud.
So to say, it's very obvious.
There's not a lot of Jaime dialogue between Cersei and him.
There's only a little bit in Cersei 1 and 2.
But he's kind of avoiding her.
We see him being silent in court on purpose uh not speaking to her and it kind of
works with his outfit here he's in white he's dressed in white like a ghost jamie is the ghost
of king's landing right now i think that's a really really great point especially as he goes about
quite a few different things and again jamie don he's wearing the white because he's like
this is what I'm supposed to wear. I'm a Kingsguard, right?
He's actually trying to undo it.
Right this time. Yeah.
It's funny that Tywin
hated that. It shows how much Tywin
felt ownership over Jaime.
What's Tywin wearing?
Other than death. Tywin
is armored in his
death. No, Tywin is armored for battle actually the
silent sisters chose to dress him for battle which i'm gonna be real with you i hope he has to go
through battle fucking prick i hope he goes through all of the layers of hell but he's wearing heavy
steel enameled deeply dark crimson gold inlay on the gauntlets, the greaves, and breastplate. His
rondels were golden sunbursts,
and a golden lioness crouched upon
each shoulder.
A maned lion crested the
great helm beside his head,
longsword and scabbard studded
with rubies.
I do like the idea of having the female lion
on the shoulders. Makes me think
of Joanna Lannister.
The idea that she is watching from his shoulders, always watching, always there.
And we get that same idea from Jaime's chapters in the very end of Feast as well.
Same.
I hope he has a lot of fucking difficulty.
Fucking deserves it.
Going into the afterlife.
Eventually, though, when it comes to this religious ceremony the devout leave and jamie wonders if uh maybe i should let loris take my place yeah but he also knows that
if he had done it and especially let loris of all people take in his place cersei would have been
pissed but again despite loris's arrogance jamie sees potential in him. And then he thinks once more of the white book that's waiting for him.
And he's like, I would rather hack it before putting lies in it.
And then wonders about, man, but how the hell am I going to write the truth in it after everything that's happened?
And first of all, I think that idea of hacking books kind of reminds me of one of Jamie's sons, Joffrey.
But I mean, obviously, Jamie's like, that seems dumb. Yes. But, I mean, obviously Jamie's like,
that seems dumb.
I'm not gonna fucking do that.
And I do think that this shows,
in general, how much his entire incident
with Tywin's death has shaken Jamie's resolve.
Like, his last chapter in Storm
ended with such positive language, right?
Whatever he chose,
he's kind of getting, in many ways,
a clean sheet on which to write his future.
And the first act that he makes his new
jamie honest jamie right first he's writing all those truths and he sounds pretty fucking lame in
them as we've discussed but it's great it's honest it's very different from what's in the book and
then his first act next is trying to protect the innocent so he believes he's not wrong
tyrian those who cannot defend themselves
as part of those oaths. Again, Tyrion
discussing, like, oh, my brother wasn't there during the
Blackwater. Also, I mean, like,
it's pretty fucking hopeless. How's he gonna escape this
prison? I think there's a part of it of
Jaime being like, maybe if I choose the other sibling
for once, maybe that's the path to
honor. Yeah. And then
it doesn't work out
after he wrote all those truths about himself kind of
throws up in his face it really does though he's like fuck but even in the face of like this huge
setback i think that's significant because now there's a woman dressed like a tavern wench again
right like and soaking wet in front of him and once more it's Cersei she's reminding him of the time that
she came to him dressed in similar similar cosplay to get past the guards back at Casterly Rock or
whatever and in the context of how shaken Jaime is by everything Cersei coming to him after he's
up after all of this i think feels very much like a test right like last time he was
resolved to be like i'm gonna hold up the king's guard i'm doing it i'm keeping my vows i'm not
gonna fuck her in the white tower and i don't think it's like a great way to think of cersei's
character right but in many ways she is tied to jamie's narrative and symbolizes whether or not
he's choosing dishonor.
And I think this is like a test of will for him, right?
Like, is he going to hold on to this resolve of like,
I'm going to choose better now after he fucked up super royally,
semi-royally, Tywin's only the hand, but whatever.
I mean, I think you're onto something with that ladder,
but, and it may be like coming
from a place of privilege for Jaime Lannister
because he's never had to worry about that kind of thing
because right now the
only thing he's actually thinking is that
Cersei wants something of him
which is also really apt
and I'm really glad to hear
that he's finally thinking that because
unfortunately for Cersei
Jaime's finally learned some of her tricks
and he's starting to kind of understand, oh,
she's just fucking us around.
Literally?
Literally.
I mean, this is what she wore when she was
hanging out with Ned Stark. He doesn't know that
though. He doesn't, but we do
and she was ready to fuck then
too. She was out there,
Stannis was going to show up and she was like where's
my green cloak you know like jamie's starting to realize maybe he's not special to her after all
so because of all that james asks her what and hoping she wants comfort but turns out no
cersei's like kevin has refused being the hand and he knows about the twin cyst escalation
I mean that's pretty bad
right she's wondering like
who else do you think knows do you think that Tyrion
told the high septon and she's like
you know what you should be hand again
not Mace
and she suspects Mace is being part of Tywin's
death and Jaime
hilariously enough denies that
he's like no Mace isn't
part of Tywin's
death.
He's not smart or fast
enough and Cersei's like, listen, if
you were my hand, we'd be king
and queen and he's like,
but you wouldn't be my queen
and he denies Tommen
as his son. He
says, look, they're both Robert's kids.
They're not mine.
You didn't let me have them.
And then there's this line that I found really interesting from Cersei of,
you swore that you would always love me.
It is not loving to make me beg.
It's very manipulative.
Very manipulative.
Very much so.
And he smells fear on Cersei.
Despite Tywin's overwhelming stench, Jamie, like, smells her fear.
He's tempted to hold her and protect her, but then remembers,
Not here, he thought.
Not in front of the gods and father.
No, he said.
I cannot.
Will not.
I need you.
I need my other half.
He could hear the rain pattering against the windows high above.
You are me.
I am you.
I need you with me, in me.
Please, Jamie, please.
Interesting shift about last time he was with Cersei and last time Cersei was with him and what happened in this sept.
Absolutely.
And it brings me back to like some of what we were saying in last chapter of how Jaime has that power to say no.
And hold the god sacred and his father holy and all this.
But Cersei wasn't able to do that for herself.
There's a couple of other things too.
Like there's something kind
of freudian here going on too like with tywin of course is that overbearing super ego he's very
much that role for tyrian and how jamie fears tywin knowing or seeing but there's something in
uh cersei's language that i think comes back to something that we discussed way way way back then in ned's chapters but also only a little bit back then in jamie's
chapters um talking again about plato and the whole right and and how people used to have like
four arms and four legs and maybe you've heard a version of this now in the half of it the netflix
movie which was fantastic i highly recommend maybe popularize that passage
right play-doh now but it's a great interpretation and artistic like cinematic uh exploration of that
again highly recommend please go watch i'm done um that was a very organic plug but it kind of was but like uh that idea of cersei seeing jamie as her other
half right and saying that they belong together that they are tied to one another especially when
with cersei interpreting it as well we came into this world together we gotta go out together
and her just sort of trying to cling to him there's a lot of clinging happening here and it's almost uh very obvious that he's pulling away right like his outfit earlier like we said
is very much pulling away from that lannister identity but she can feel it too i mean not
neither of them know and like to be fair how do you break up with your sister that you've been sleeping with or your brother that
you've been sleeping with right your sister how do you how do you god jamie is nervous that his
father is rising since his father is just like rigor mortis setting in with his muscles uh he
gives the excuse that jamie thinks he should be fighting
not stuck in the council chambers and cersei's like all right fine you can go be on battlefields
and she leaves after being disappointed with him closing with the line i was a fool to come i was
a fool ever to love you loudly and wetly she leaves she is in fact it's waiting but also right hmm wouldn't be the
first time uh it makes you want to jam out to half by the manimals check out their album seven
if you have not very good game of thrones concept album and it actually reminds me of a line from
johnny boy chapter six a stormords. You were wrong to love
her, a voice whispered.
You were wrong to leave her,
a different voice whispered.
That's an interesting
parallel.
Especially when thinking of possibly
the loves and relationships
to come for Jon Snow in the story.
Absolutely. Well, also
in the context of Jaime,
like, I mean, it was wrong for him to
love his twin sister like that.
Yup. For sure.
Will it be wrong for him to have left
her, depending on how that
goes down? Interesting.
But right now, surprise, it's almost
done. We time
traveled.
It's still pretty in here, though, and tywin is also still rotting it's a
he's extremely gross now people are starting to notice like deceptive and some of the people get
nauseous around him and they're novices they're swinging sensors around of incense like maybe
this will help it doesn't it still smells real bad i don't think i need to go into this that much
partly because i think it's
fairly evident but also this is one of those things that has been like explored heavily already
by a lot of other people in the fandom and i don't want to retread that ground but just you know one
line tywin's corpse rotting so horribly and the rotting of his legacy that's it a lot of other
people have done great analysis on this yeah absolutely it's up there
with the pink letter right like there's no reason yeah no reason so eventually the tyrells enter
among the first of the people entering because they're high class marjorie brings a bouquet of
golden roses to leave at tywin's uh body very cleverly and she brings her own gold rose
back with her so she can smell it
throughout the ceremony and not smell the awfulness.
Yeah, and her
ladies actually follow her example.
Jaime's like, that was pretty
smart. Tommen would be
alright to have her. And then Cersei waits
to make a fashionably late entrance with
Tommen. Osmund,
interestingly, is also there,
and Jaime once again remembers Tyrion's words.
Then Jaime thinks about, oh, Osmund is so hairy,
and then tries to imagine Cersei and Osmund boning.
There's, like, a line. I didn't put it in here.
I'm going to try to remember it.
He was something like spun gold and, like, black wires.
And I'm like, okay.
Oh, yeah, I remember. I'll never forget.
I'm like, tell me about his sex tell me
about everyone's pubic hair jamie and all he's imagining is like osman pumping into her and he
is he's like it's untrue he thinks but you know something about this chapter that i didn't really
realize till now is that this chapter is like rejecting truths on a stage right cersei knows that this
is a social event so her on that stage might not be saying 100 truthful things but it's her soapbox
for the moment and jamie has done this his entire life as the kingslayer pretty much the role ned
had to play jamie is denying all of the truth on a stage where anyone
could see it and he gets struck down in a way yeah but it's a very lannister thing in this
moment right i think there's a part of him that in rejecting truths is kind of mirroring cersei
right he's struggling to enter to integrate this narrative this new information of like
cersei's been sleeping with other people partially because we never defined the relationship or whatever
um and he's just rejecting it right he's like that can't be true and at the same time as you
said earlier seriously he's been rejecting that idea that tywin lannister would sleep with sex
workers or literally anyone apparently in her past chapter she's like very convinced that her father has never ever had sex except for
with Joanna Lannister ever again
and
and then of course we had Tywin
before right being like
I'm convinced Tywin
had to have known like how do you just
not know that your twin children are having
sex like especially if his wife knew right
like you have to be very blind and not
paying attention and Kevin obviously knows so like they're a family of just
burying things down and being like that can't be real
yeah it's pretty much a bummer especially when you think of the kids
cersei forces tom into pray next he starts crying
because he's eight and she's being very harsh yeah finally jamie has osman take his place
and chases out after tommen and he apologizes he gets his son out of the people's eyes and
tommen's like it wasn't it was the smell how could you bear it? Jaime thinks of his hand rotting and speaks to Tommen.
A man can bear most anything if he must, Jaime told his son.
I have smelled a man roasting as King Aerys cooked him in his own armor.
The world is full of horrors, Tommen.
You can fight them or laugh at them or look without seeing.
Go away inside.
Tommen considered that i used to go away inside sometimes he confessed when joffy joffrey circe stood over them the wind whipping her skirts
around her legs your brother's name was joffrey he would never have shamed me so
projection pretty much I also secretly
included this because I really like
the word joffy
it's cute it's so
cute and Tommen is a cutie
joffy
except it's not cute
because it's depicting abuse I know
but the word itself and how
Tommen can't say it
adorable precious
and him being like he's like
I'm eight it reminds me again of like Marcella
being like well Joffrey we're fucking
kids
chill homie anyway
uh yeah yeah
there's um a couple of ways
as we all know that Cersei is not like
Tywin come again
even though she thinks she is.
A lot of it, I think, is that parenting.
You know, first of all, she follows a lot of the Tywin model, as we said again,
of like looking over people's faults and pretending that's not real.
She did a lot of that, I think, with Joffrey and his horrible acts,
and that kind of led to his ruin.
In the same way that Tywin overlooking the children's sexual activity
kind of led to Jaime being like, yeah, I uh tywin overlooking the children's sexual activity kind
of led to jamie being like yeah i'm gonna join the king's guard why not uh but you know she does
the same thing as tywin right she puts her horrible firstborn son who was beautiful on a pedestal
jamie's not like joffrey though very much um in a lot of ways and also seriously just kind of
verbally pummeling tommy for being unable toommen for being unable to stand the rotting sand and being eight years old, right?
And not living up to this idealized, firstborn, beautiful son the way that Tywin does Soterian.
That's a great point.
And I think we get a little call out that Joffrey definitely did abuse Tommen more than we saw here.
I've related a lot of this with Sandor
before in our podcast,
but you have that line in
Sansa 1, A Clash of Kings, where
Joffrey yells, he got knocked
off his horse and fell in the dirt. That's
not riding well. And the hound says,
look, the boy has courage. He's gonna
try again. Yes!
Yes. It brings me back to
that line, though, with the brave companions and brienne
and jamie where jamie uh says when we make for camp for the night you'll be raped and more than
once you'd be wise not to resist and brienne says back is that what you would do if you were a woman
uh this advice here is you know i'm not sure if it's the best advice uh jamie spent years and
years years and years and years repressing all this and just now he's healthily getting it out
like 40 years later 30 years later i don't know yeah and i may i think that shows some of that
sliding back and also he just doesn't know what to tell tommy but like you said it's not the best
advice especially as Jaime's
starting to realize what if I didn't just go
away inside and started doing things
and making the changes that I wanted to see in the world
be the change
Jaime
Cersei though right now she's still
like continuing to scold her son
and then she's pointing like alright you're crying
but look at all these other fucking Tyrells that didn't
cry and then she turns on Jaime who who's like, Circe, enough.
She's like, no, fuck you.
She
insists that he hasn't kept his
vigil seven days and seven nights, and then
insults the number of his fingers and being able to
count on it. And then Mace Tyrell
comes. He's, like, approaching to ask after Tommen,
which I think is probably, like, you know,
a normal person thing to do.
Jamie then suggests, oh, Mace, what if you had supper with Cersei after the services?
And everyone's like, interesting idea.
And they're very surprised and shocked, not in like a happy way.
Everyone responds incredibly courteously.
Eventually, Mace Tyrell leaves with Adam Marbrand.
And then Cersei gets mad at Jamie again like what the fuck was that?
It's such a drain because
Cersei and her crew could
so use a sympathetic image
right now. Right? Like capitalize
go all in on this holy
our father who died thing.
The grandfather of the king.
Politicize that image. That would be
so smart. And the Tyrells?
At this point she's so much better off
charming and using them rather than abusing and dumping them because it turns out you don't have
tywin to tie everything together like you're kind of on a raft in the middle of the ocean whether
you realize it right now or not yeah she she has no idea how to actually she has no idea how to
trust outside of the lannisters right and tywin never taught her to do that in the way that the Tyrells have taught and fostered those alliances
he's taught her to distrust it yeah he's kind of taught her to distrust everyone
the reins the castameres Ares pretty much and I think and I get it because I think that's how
Tywin saw the world right it's like Cersei inherited a lot of the
very difficult parts of Tywin
I don't know that there were good parts
of Tywin
me either I just don't know
Tyrion maybe inherited the ruthlessness
yeah
Jaime did
get some of the pragmatic planning
some of it he got a lot of the hopes
and dreams but yeah the pragmatic planning like Some of it. He got a lot of the hopes and dreams.
But yeah, the pragmatic planning.
Like, he's trying to explain to Cersei, like,
you know, we kind of need the Tyrells,
but here's an idea.
What if you sent Mace to Storm's End on behalf of Tommen?
And he can, like, try and take Storm's End
or die trying.
And in exchange, right,
we know that Mace isn't going to leave
unless they secure a marriage between
tom and and rodrigo and they're like you know what it's fine let's just fucking do it they can't
consummate it anyway it can be set aside eventually and seriously it's like interesting interesting
you know mace could die yes and we get this passage there is that risk conceded jamie
especially if his patience runs thin this time and he elects to storm the gate.
Circe gave him a lingering look. You know, she said, for a moment, you sounded quite like father.
Ah, not only is that a perfect way to get rid of the people you really don't want to talk to,
but B, Circe finally remembered that storm's end is kind of important
and could be like a very big political thing for them because you know the heir to storm's end is
the baratheon heir and yep that's true the the baratheon seat is pretty important to
tom and baratheon power baby power is power mean, it was important, right? For Rob, how could it not be for the Baratheons?
Yeah.
And the strategy that Jaime comes up here,
it does kind of seem like something that we've seen George kind of lean on before.
Send them to go do something important.
And interestingly, maybe they'll conveniently die.
It's very similar to how Varys and Littlefinger were thinking back in A Game of Thrones
about who they felt that Ned Stark should have sent
to fetch back Gregor Clegane and bring him to justice.
Turns out Jaime's capable of thinking
of that kind of political strategy too.
He just can't make the better strategy of like,
what if Cersei and the Tyrells got along?
He just can't make that work.
It's a hard ask though to be fair i i mean hell i would argue that was rugen you were speaking
of rugen oh i'm sorry all that rugen yes rugen no that all makes sense and the saddest part is that
in this strategy to our knowledge we don't know if it's true or not we don't really
know what has happened with loris but innocent blood is potentially spilled via loris right
maybe not fully innocent but loris is a semi-honorable jamie mini prototype perfect
young knight right and he hot-headed goes straight into the first scene he can go into, and we're told he might not make it.
We don't know yet. We won't know for
a time.
Yeah, considering that back then
Varys and Littlefinger were like,
yo, what if you sent Loras after Gregor?
What if?
What if? I mean, that would be awful.
He would've died. Yeah, he would've died, and they're like,
yeah, that'd be great. That's what, like, Littlefinger
and Varys were like, that'd be great. That's what Littlefinger and Berries were like, that'd be great.
For you.
You know, this chapter has so much
starting
framework for A Feast for Crows
and Jaime's plot moving forward and Brienne
and Cersei's plot moving forward.
I know it's not really a heavy
chapter so far as
you know, just so far as answers, but it's definitely heavy and starting some questions for us to get through through the next few weeks.
Yeah, and I love that it ends with a little bit of that ambiguity of like, hey, how much of on this path of honor, right, is Jamie on?
Like, how much is he- he's wavering. It's difficult. Changing habits from, I don't know, like, 15 years of your life is hard.
It's fluctuating.
It's a battle.
Every day is different.
Yeah, and your mindset, like, trying to be positive, it's hard, especially when you're
like, oh, maybe my actions led to my dad dying when I was trying to do something good.
So there's a lot that's setting this up.
And of course, Jamie, once more,
his relationship with his family,
we haven't seen him interact with them that much.
Yeah.
Well, we have and we haven't, whatever.
Not enough, but we're about to get some more.
Well, that about wraps us up
for A Song of Ice and Fire episode 89.
Jamie won in aast for Crows.
We're so glad you all could have joined us today.
And next week, we're going to have Jamie 2 in A Feast for Crows, which has a whole lot to talk about.
This all gets deeper.
And of course, stay tuned for when that happens, right?
You can find us on social media at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N on Twitter. Send us a tweet
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As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe.
And I have been another one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts,
Eliana. We only
have two hosts, Eliana.
We have Allie the
intern. No, she's
an executive producer. Oh, sorry.
When did she get
promoted so
fast? Oh, you're right. Jake has always
been the intern. Maybe she's a kettle
block. Maybe she is.
Goodbye.
Bye.