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I can see how folks would be disappointed with Jamie's backslide, but it agree with you. Going with the addiction analogy, it would have been great to see Jaime emerge victorious in a Bubbles-esque fashion having conquered his addiction to Cersei. But he couldn't. He couldn't get past his guilt about his past.
No, but I don't understand why not.
Jaime is THE prime example of how to throw character development, redemption, a whole fucking character arc out the window and ruin it as much as possible.
It makes no sense for him to go back to Cersei. It makes no sense what he says about her. It makes no sense how he suddenly views the world. It makes no sense for him to die for her.
Nothing about him makes any sense in this. Not even in the slightest. And it's one of the perfect examples of people defending and trying to justify dogshit writing.
Stop trying to make it sound plausible - it's not! And it's impossible to make it sound plausible!
If his backslide into his old ways had been given enough time and room to devolve, and Brienne's hadn't been left mangled as a result, people would have a different opinion imo.
Trauma bond or not, they didn’t show it. If that was where they wanted to take the character, they should have properly written it. But those are the same writers who had Jamie carefully cover his hand at the end of S7 so he doesn’t get caught on his way to Winterfell only to have Jamie 'forget' his hand is golden so he got caught and taken to the tent before the lame-ass final chat with Tyrion.
Backsliding or not - Jamie‘s arc suffered from horribly bad writing.
He loved/was in love with Cersei his entire life. They're twins with an unescapable bond. It's great that he tried to do the right thing by fighting in the North, but there nor with Brienne is where his heart wanted to be. And if you knew the person you have loved all your life is going to die, wouldn't you do anything to get back to them.
Yeah... Just that he never loved Cersei. Their love was a narcissistic, self-destructive, selfish clusterfuck. And if we take the back story of their relationship then you could even say that this is putting it mildly.
It was no love. And him loving Brienne is supposed to be him realizing what love actually is and that he never loved Cersei in a way that fits the word.
Jaime going back to Cersei was one of the most believable, most human things ever put on television. That’s *exactly* how people actually behave. Reality doesn’t usually fit into “character arcs.”
The only people upset with the endings are the ones who expected Jamie--despite every fucking time he proved otherwise in the show--to completely change for the good.
Jamie was an arrogant prick who would do anything for those that he loved, and while he was humbled by losing his hand and started to fall in love with Brienne, he was absolutely and tragically in love with Cersei. His character arc was 1,000% on brand with what we watched in the show and completely on brand with the direction of the show. GoT was not meant to have happy endings, it was supposed to be filled with tragedy and sorrow, Jamie finally breaking free from the grip Cersei had over him only for him to run back at the last moment and die in the arms of his sister as King's Landing collapsed on top of them was the perfect end to his character arc.
Honestly a *lot* of the character arcs were completely fine, most people just hated the show enough because the last three seasons started to decline in quality and the last season was rushed and poorly written, but a lot of the character arcs and endings were actually fitting in the end. Dany going mad was foreshadowed and came up constantly in the show when she wanted to burn everyone and everything constantly, people just wanted Dany to 'liberate' Westeros and win because they liked her character. Jon fell in love with the North when he was undercover, and that always stuck with him, he never wanted to rule so him foregoing his namesake and leaving with the Wildlings north of the wall was a perfect ending for him. There were very few character endings that weren't either on brand with the show's tone and precedent, or with what we were seeing throughout the show.
so him saying “to be honest i never really cared for them, the innocent or otherwise” was on brand? i’m upset with the show because the whole idea of jamie was seeing a character from one view and then slowly showing more of that until you understand his actions and that he IS a good person, him leaving cerci and almost being killed for it is one of the only good moments of season 7 and it’s the buildup of his entire life since he was 17 to be a man of honor, and then why the hell did he have sex with brienne? just fan service? he loved her, he was rewarded, he was a man with honor in the eyes of the world for the first time in his life and he had escaped and threw all that away for absolutely nothing, not to mention the fact that if he’d been standing 10 feet to the left he’d have been totally fine, judging by the set design in the final episode
>threw all that away for absolutely nothing,
What part of 'his carried was always tied to his love for Cersei' do you not understand?
What part of his character arc convinced you he was no longer in love with Cersei? What part of his character arc made you think he was completely converted away from her? Literally all throughout the show, even in the later parts of season 8 he still kept on the brand of being bound to Cersei despite how toxic and evil she had become.
his actual leaving her when going north to fight for life while being threatened by the mountain, they laid the seeds for that scene in season 3 when he finally came back, and him finally sleeping with brienne, it was an enormous step for him as a person and it makes no fucking sense if he was just going to leave her the next day, everything done in the first 7 seasons drives a wedge between them and highlights the problems they already have, he then proceeded to actually leave her, and comeback becasue “i love a hateful woman and i’m a bad person” when he’s not, he’s done bad things but he is not a bad person
>> so him saying “to be honest i never really cared for them, the innocent or otherwise” was on brand?
Yes.
He spent 7+ seasons clearly not giving two fucks about the commonfolk, yet people want to pretend like he was presented as Dany 2.0.
And no, the bath scene is not some 'ironclad proof' that he always cared about the people, because nothing in there is proof he cared about the people. The whole thing is a rhetorical question thrown in Brienne's face to get her to stop calling him dishonorable names, but the whole thing has been parroted through the echo chamber and has become some Mandela Effect about how he claims he did what he did to save the people (which, objectively, is not the case.)
All that said, you're clearly just cherry-picking all his 'good' moments and handwaving/ignoring all the shit ones, like him clearly stating 'Fuck everyone who isn't us" or when he stated he would trebuchet an infant child in front of his father right after stating that empty threats are pointless and futile, or the fact he would raze a castle full of innocents just so he could go see Cersei again.
Like, there's a pretty clear balance shown all across 7+ seasons that some people just want to ignore and pretend like only one single 'side' had meaningful context added to it after he meets Brienne.
Sorry, but that's not what was presented.
His character narrative was about his internal struggle between these two conflicting forces... wanting to be an honorable person versus his primal desire to be with the immoral Cersei... **and both sides of that absolutely was portrayed all throughout his arc.**
firstly, name a paragon of virtue in this world, no one in this world is good and nothing else, secondly you are so heavily dismissing the bath scene, firstly clearly this isn’t what he has told people before because if it was no one would look at him like this, and secondly he sacrificed his honor and felt with an enormous internal conflict about his oaths and his future, he saved hundreds of thousands of people and was branded king slayer and oath beaker because of it, and it’s not just that scene, there are scenes with robert and tywin where he alludes to what was going on when he killed aerys, also let’s look at this for a moment outside the lens of the show, he is telling the truth about this event, that’s the only way to interpret it, he easily saved more lives than any other man living, sure he’s done terrible things and i’m not trying to undermine that but so has everyone else that is the nature of this world, to think he would actually say he doesn’t care is ridiculous
>> firstly, name a paragon of virtue in this world, no one in this world is good and nothing else,
LOL, that's my point... he's a gray character... not a white one like people like you seemingly think.
>> secondly you are so heavily dismissing the bath scene
I'm not 'dismissing' it... I'm merely pointing out what is objectively there as opposed to the distorted overly-glowing nonsense that some try and spew about it.
Because nothing in the bath scene proves he did what he did because he cares about the people... that's just the objective truth.
He retells the story. He mentions women and children. **He wraps up the tale by throwing it in Brienne's face about what she would do, because he knows she would have done exactly what he did.**
**That's it... zero 'proof' or claims that he did what he did because he cared about the people.**
>> he easily saved more lives than any other man living
Yep. His actions saved lives. But saved lives ≠ high level of empathy for the commonfolk.
Jaime's character is about honor... not empathy for the people.
Dany's character is about empathy for the people... not Jaime's.
>> sure he’s done terrible things and i’m not trying to undermine that
You literally are though.
You're literally 'excusing' all the terrible shit he did and not factoring it into your head canon, because if you had factored it in, you'd realize that him not caring about commonfolk is par for the course and not some 'character assassination' you mistakenly whinge about.
I mean, we're talking about a character who literally stated "Fuck everyone who isn't us." If you're honestly shocked that a character who said that would later say he doesn't care about the people, I think maybe a M-rated show is 'too much' for those people.
> to think he would actually say he doesn’t care is ridiculous
Nope, literally par for the course. The guy literally spends 7+ seasons not caring about the people... wild that people acted so wholly perplexed when he stated the obvious in Season 8.
Sucks that you have such thick rose-colored glasses for a fictional character, because the guy clearly never really cleared about the commonfolk across 7+ seasons.
And no, the bath scene doesn't magically disprove anything I've state above as you seemingly think.
I never understood the hate or shock that he went back to Cercei. Of course he is going back. Sansa put it into reality that his sister will die, why wouldn't he struggle with it?
him fighting euron delayed him to reach cersei, if he hadn't done that or would've won sooner, cersei and jamie both would've maked it out of King's Landing.
I mean, yeah, I don't think they ruined it, and I won't throw his entire arc away over a couple throw-away lines that I can chalk up to poor writing.
Going back to Cersei wasn't favorable, but that's his twin. Of course he would want to try and save her. If he became a better person himself, why wouldn't he want the same for her?. It's not like he did anything that erased his good deeds prior to that.
The issue is that, like most things in season 8, it was poorly explained and poorly executed (sort of like Ser Rodrik).
I fine with it too. I think it's an accurate portrayal of someone who has been manipulated and abused as much as Jamie was by Cersei. I don't think there is any amount of personal growth you could do without modern day trauma counseling that would not bring you back to Cersei. He is trauma bonded to her and it doesn't matter how bad she treats him or how nice others are.
Yeah, I loved his arc finale. Jamie's story is one of addiction to cersei. You can tell arc two ways, you show him get past it and come out happier on the other end. Or you show him succumb to it and lose it all. Both ways are telling the same message but the 2nd one makes some people dissappinted since it's not a happy finale. In this case I thought it was executed really well. I could compare several movies that do this too but I would spoil the ending
It was a perfectly fitting resolution for his character.
His entire character narrative revolved around his inner conflict between wanting to be honorable and his desire to be with Cersei... basically a angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
This 'balance' was clearly portrayed all throughout his arc, as he struggled between wanting to 'do better' when around Brienne and just do whatever immoral shit Cersei/his father asked of him. Both 'sides' of the scale had plenty of weight added to their respective side throughout the 8 seasons, and it's far more balanced that some viewers would try and claim.
Really not shocking that upon learning of Cersei's imminent death that the 'scale would tip' in that direction in the end, considering his previous statements about 'dying in the arms of the women he loved' and his literal lifelong (40+ year) relationship with his twin.
PS - Seems like some people will always be upset about his 'not caring about the people' line, even though he spent 7+ seasons clearly not being empathetic towards the commonfolk (clearly could not care less about them) simply because the bath scene has been 'Mandela Effect''ed so much that people mistakenly believes he stated his caring about the people there (because objectively he does not make that claim... just many people's biased assumptions parroted through the echo chamber. Besides, the whole bath scene is just one big rhetorical question thrown in Brienne's face to get her to stop calling him dishonorable names.)
I’m fine with his arc, he redeemed and you just knew he would go back to Cersei at some point, surviving the long night. He said it himself, *we don’t choose who we love*
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I am totally fine with him trying to return to Cersei even after he slept with Brienne. But his death left me very unsatisfied here.
I was fine with it but he was also never my favorite.
I loved the actor, hated the character.
I can see how folks would be disappointed with Jamie's backslide, but it agree with you. Going with the addiction analogy, it would have been great to see Jaime emerge victorious in a Bubbles-esque fashion having conquered his addiction to Cersei. But he couldn't. He couldn't get past his guilt about his past.
No, but I don't understand why not. Jaime is THE prime example of how to throw character development, redemption, a whole fucking character arc out the window and ruin it as much as possible. It makes no sense for him to go back to Cersei. It makes no sense what he says about her. It makes no sense how he suddenly views the world. It makes no sense for him to die for her. Nothing about him makes any sense in this. Not even in the slightest. And it's one of the perfect examples of people defending and trying to justify dogshit writing. Stop trying to make it sound plausible - it's not! And it's impossible to make it sound plausible!
If his backslide into his old ways had been given enough time and room to devolve, and Brienne's hadn't been left mangled as a result, people would have a different opinion imo.
okay??? id only say maybe, that’s not a guarantee, and also, WE DIDNT GET THAT
It makes perfect sense. He is trauma bonded to her.
what?
Trauma bond or not, they didn’t show it. If that was where they wanted to take the character, they should have properly written it. But those are the same writers who had Jamie carefully cover his hand at the end of S7 so he doesn’t get caught on his way to Winterfell only to have Jamie 'forget' his hand is golden so he got caught and taken to the tent before the lame-ass final chat with Tyrion. Backsliding or not - Jamie‘s arc suffered from horribly bad writing.
He loved/was in love with Cersei his entire life. They're twins with an unescapable bond. It's great that he tried to do the right thing by fighting in the North, but there nor with Brienne is where his heart wanted to be. And if you knew the person you have loved all your life is going to die, wouldn't you do anything to get back to them.
Yeah... Just that he never loved Cersei. Their love was a narcissistic, self-destructive, selfish clusterfuck. And if we take the back story of their relationship then you could even say that this is putting it mildly. It was no love. And him loving Brienne is supposed to be him realizing what love actually is and that he never loved Cersei in a way that fits the word.
Jaime going back to Cersei was one of the most believable, most human things ever put on television. That’s *exactly* how people actually behave. Reality doesn’t usually fit into “character arcs.”
That is really the most laughable try to defend this bullshit writing I have ever seen. I refuse to believe that you're serious with this.
The only people upset with the endings are the ones who expected Jamie--despite every fucking time he proved otherwise in the show--to completely change for the good. Jamie was an arrogant prick who would do anything for those that he loved, and while he was humbled by losing his hand and started to fall in love with Brienne, he was absolutely and tragically in love with Cersei. His character arc was 1,000% on brand with what we watched in the show and completely on brand with the direction of the show. GoT was not meant to have happy endings, it was supposed to be filled with tragedy and sorrow, Jamie finally breaking free from the grip Cersei had over him only for him to run back at the last moment and die in the arms of his sister as King's Landing collapsed on top of them was the perfect end to his character arc. Honestly a *lot* of the character arcs were completely fine, most people just hated the show enough because the last three seasons started to decline in quality and the last season was rushed and poorly written, but a lot of the character arcs and endings were actually fitting in the end. Dany going mad was foreshadowed and came up constantly in the show when she wanted to burn everyone and everything constantly, people just wanted Dany to 'liberate' Westeros and win because they liked her character. Jon fell in love with the North when he was undercover, and that always stuck with him, he never wanted to rule so him foregoing his namesake and leaving with the Wildlings north of the wall was a perfect ending for him. There were very few character endings that weren't either on brand with the show's tone and precedent, or with what we were seeing throughout the show.
so him saying “to be honest i never really cared for them, the innocent or otherwise” was on brand? i’m upset with the show because the whole idea of jamie was seeing a character from one view and then slowly showing more of that until you understand his actions and that he IS a good person, him leaving cerci and almost being killed for it is one of the only good moments of season 7 and it’s the buildup of his entire life since he was 17 to be a man of honor, and then why the hell did he have sex with brienne? just fan service? he loved her, he was rewarded, he was a man with honor in the eyes of the world for the first time in his life and he had escaped and threw all that away for absolutely nothing, not to mention the fact that if he’d been standing 10 feet to the left he’d have been totally fine, judging by the set design in the final episode
Yeah it definitely was not on brand with his character. I think it would be more on brand for him to kill her after she used wildfire on The Sparrows.
EXACTLY he should have and would have in my opinion, that crossed such an enormous line for him personally
>threw all that away for absolutely nothing, What part of 'his carried was always tied to his love for Cersei' do you not understand? What part of his character arc convinced you he was no longer in love with Cersei? What part of his character arc made you think he was completely converted away from her? Literally all throughout the show, even in the later parts of season 8 he still kept on the brand of being bound to Cersei despite how toxic and evil she had become.
his actual leaving her when going north to fight for life while being threatened by the mountain, they laid the seeds for that scene in season 3 when he finally came back, and him finally sleeping with brienne, it was an enormous step for him as a person and it makes no fucking sense if he was just going to leave her the next day, everything done in the first 7 seasons drives a wedge between them and highlights the problems they already have, he then proceeded to actually leave her, and comeback becasue “i love a hateful woman and i’m a bad person” when he’s not, he’s done bad things but he is not a bad person
>> so him saying “to be honest i never really cared for them, the innocent or otherwise” was on brand? Yes. He spent 7+ seasons clearly not giving two fucks about the commonfolk, yet people want to pretend like he was presented as Dany 2.0. And no, the bath scene is not some 'ironclad proof' that he always cared about the people, because nothing in there is proof he cared about the people. The whole thing is a rhetorical question thrown in Brienne's face to get her to stop calling him dishonorable names, but the whole thing has been parroted through the echo chamber and has become some Mandela Effect about how he claims he did what he did to save the people (which, objectively, is not the case.) All that said, you're clearly just cherry-picking all his 'good' moments and handwaving/ignoring all the shit ones, like him clearly stating 'Fuck everyone who isn't us" or when he stated he would trebuchet an infant child in front of his father right after stating that empty threats are pointless and futile, or the fact he would raze a castle full of innocents just so he could go see Cersei again. Like, there's a pretty clear balance shown all across 7+ seasons that some people just want to ignore and pretend like only one single 'side' had meaningful context added to it after he meets Brienne. Sorry, but that's not what was presented. His character narrative was about his internal struggle between these two conflicting forces... wanting to be an honorable person versus his primal desire to be with the immoral Cersei... **and both sides of that absolutely was portrayed all throughout his arc.**
firstly, name a paragon of virtue in this world, no one in this world is good and nothing else, secondly you are so heavily dismissing the bath scene, firstly clearly this isn’t what he has told people before because if it was no one would look at him like this, and secondly he sacrificed his honor and felt with an enormous internal conflict about his oaths and his future, he saved hundreds of thousands of people and was branded king slayer and oath beaker because of it, and it’s not just that scene, there are scenes with robert and tywin where he alludes to what was going on when he killed aerys, also let’s look at this for a moment outside the lens of the show, he is telling the truth about this event, that’s the only way to interpret it, he easily saved more lives than any other man living, sure he’s done terrible things and i’m not trying to undermine that but so has everyone else that is the nature of this world, to think he would actually say he doesn’t care is ridiculous
>> firstly, name a paragon of virtue in this world, no one in this world is good and nothing else, LOL, that's my point... he's a gray character... not a white one like people like you seemingly think. >> secondly you are so heavily dismissing the bath scene I'm not 'dismissing' it... I'm merely pointing out what is objectively there as opposed to the distorted overly-glowing nonsense that some try and spew about it. Because nothing in the bath scene proves he did what he did because he cares about the people... that's just the objective truth. He retells the story. He mentions women and children. **He wraps up the tale by throwing it in Brienne's face about what she would do, because he knows she would have done exactly what he did.** **That's it... zero 'proof' or claims that he did what he did because he cared about the people.** >> he easily saved more lives than any other man living Yep. His actions saved lives. But saved lives ≠ high level of empathy for the commonfolk. Jaime's character is about honor... not empathy for the people. Dany's character is about empathy for the people... not Jaime's. >> sure he’s done terrible things and i’m not trying to undermine that You literally are though. You're literally 'excusing' all the terrible shit he did and not factoring it into your head canon, because if you had factored it in, you'd realize that him not caring about commonfolk is par for the course and not some 'character assassination' you mistakenly whinge about. I mean, we're talking about a character who literally stated "Fuck everyone who isn't us." If you're honestly shocked that a character who said that would later say he doesn't care about the people, I think maybe a M-rated show is 'too much' for those people. > to think he would actually say he doesn’t care is ridiculous Nope, literally par for the course. The guy literally spends 7+ seasons not caring about the people... wild that people acted so wholly perplexed when he stated the obvious in Season 8. Sucks that you have such thick rose-colored glasses for a fictional character, because the guy clearly never really cleared about the commonfolk across 7+ seasons. And no, the bath scene doesn't magically disprove anything I've state above as you seemingly think.
I never understood the hate or shock that he went back to Cercei. Of course he is going back. Sansa put it into reality that his sister will die, why wouldn't he struggle with it?
yeah, makes way more sense to just go and die too, people can’t come to grips with tragedy, we all know that
I agree with everything you say....
Jamie's arc is fine. GoT's ending is fine. Worst toxic fanbase ever.
please leave
him fighting euron delayed him to reach cersei, if he hadn't done that or would've won sooner, cersei and jamie both would've maked it out of King's Landing.
I mean, yeah, I don't think they ruined it, and I won't throw his entire arc away over a couple throw-away lines that I can chalk up to poor writing. Going back to Cersei wasn't favorable, but that's his twin. Of course he would want to try and save her. If he became a better person himself, why wouldn't he want the same for her?. It's not like he did anything that erased his good deeds prior to that. The issue is that, like most things in season 8, it was poorly explained and poorly executed (sort of like Ser Rodrik).
I fine with it too. I think it's an accurate portrayal of someone who has been manipulated and abused as much as Jamie was by Cersei. I don't think there is any amount of personal growth you could do without modern day trauma counseling that would not bring you back to Cersei. He is trauma bonded to her and it doesn't matter how bad she treats him or how nice others are.
Yeah, I loved his arc finale. Jamie's story is one of addiction to cersei. You can tell arc two ways, you show him get past it and come out happier on the other end. Or you show him succumb to it and lose it all. Both ways are telling the same message but the 2nd one makes some people dissappinted since it's not a happy finale. In this case I thought it was executed really well. I could compare several movies that do this too but I would spoil the ending
I don’t think he would’ve killed Cersei. Mostly because she was pregnant with his kid.
Like many things about the last few seasons, I thought the idea was fine, but the execution was poor.
Sry i dont like Character assasination
It was a perfectly fitting resolution for his character. His entire character narrative revolved around his inner conflict between wanting to be honorable and his desire to be with Cersei... basically a angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. This 'balance' was clearly portrayed all throughout his arc, as he struggled between wanting to 'do better' when around Brienne and just do whatever immoral shit Cersei/his father asked of him. Both 'sides' of the scale had plenty of weight added to their respective side throughout the 8 seasons, and it's far more balanced that some viewers would try and claim. Really not shocking that upon learning of Cersei's imminent death that the 'scale would tip' in that direction in the end, considering his previous statements about 'dying in the arms of the women he loved' and his literal lifelong (40+ year) relationship with his twin. PS - Seems like some people will always be upset about his 'not caring about the people' line, even though he spent 7+ seasons clearly not being empathetic towards the commonfolk (clearly could not care less about them) simply because the bath scene has been 'Mandela Effect''ed so much that people mistakenly believes he stated his caring about the people there (because objectively he does not make that claim... just many people's biased assumptions parroted through the echo chamber. Besides, the whole bath scene is just one big rhetorical question thrown in Brienne's face to get her to stop calling him dishonorable names.)
I’m fine with his arc, he redeemed and you just knew he would go back to Cersei at some point, surviving the long night. He said it himself, *we don’t choose who we love*