There's an interesting parallel between Jaime and Barristan in this. Jaime broke his oath, killed Aerys super dishonorably by stabbing him in the back, saved the day. Barristan rescued Aerys from Duskendale, and in the process he was incredibly knightly, brave, daring, self-sacrificing - all the buzzwords. And it made the world SOOOOOOO much worse overall. GRRM is definitely trying to make a statement about the ascetics of looking heroic versus the reality of doing good deeds...
Excellent point. The fact that Selmy ponders on this decision make me wonder if the theory that he'll betray Dany for Aegon will come true. The theory by BryndenBFish suggests that Selmy will have doubts about some of Dany's decisions, and those doubts will make him fear that she may be like her father. Moreover, the guilt he has over failing Rhaegar, and failing to protect his children, will compound itself to his guilt for saving Aerys II, and will compel him to help Aegon against Dany. I don't want it to happen, but it's a very convincing theory.
@@Mic-Mak That would be really fun to see... Barristan is obliviously ecstatic to serve Rhaegar's son, meanwhile the Golden Company members pretend to be thrilled to have him on their side and hide the fact that they all hate his guts for killing Maelys. Though with the Barristan-Criston Cole parallels and Skahaz's crossbows, I'd kinda assumed Barristan would die a stupid pointless death right outside the walls of Meereen during the Battle of Fire...
Barristan is not the first Kingsguard to save a king to the realms detriment, if Aemon the Dragonknight had not died defending his brother than the Blackfyre rebellions may never have occurred. I am sure there are other stories of great knights defending bad Kings in Westeros. Aerys' Kingsguard is held up as one of the most distinguished in recent memory and Jaime's chapters show just how thin that veneer was. Martin does not paint a good picture of knighthood throughout his tale.
Excellent observation. I often wonder how Jaime would react if he learned about Jon's alleged parentage. Thinking about his fever dreams in A Storm of Swords. Only reason I brought it up.
there's also the fact that its very likely that barristan threw the joust where he was unhorsed by rhaegar. he mentions that if he had been "a better knight" rhaegar wouldn't have crowned lyanna and he would've crowned ashara instead. barristan will be the first to tell us that being a knight is about more than just fighting and knocking men off horses so his assertion that his losing a joust makes him a lesser knight is wild. that probably means that Rhaegar who we believe was using the tourney to conspire against aerys, probably ordered him to throw the joust so that he could crown Lyanna and set his plan into motion. on the outside both rhaegar and barristan seem very knightly at the joust (before rhaegar humiliates his wife) and it seems like they both jousted honorably and everything was above board but underneath the surface everything is tainted. it feels like everything at harrenhal was similarly tainted under the surface despite seeming like the kind of glamorous beautiful event Sansa might fantasize about.
The scene between him and Brienne was amazing and Jamie's reaction at seeing KL in ruins is what reminded me that the wildfire was never addressed again. Even after being dubbed the Kingslayer, he could have addressed it with the new king. Maybe after all the trauma, killing Aerys, and the reaction afterwards, Jamie was just done.
Jamie went from being a character I was not super into at all into a one of the characters I like the re-reads of most. He's truly one of GRRM's gems of writing across works.
@@HillsAliveYTwhy do you think Rhaegar left a newbie knight to watch over Elia . I think because rhaegar is more like his father then we realize just better at making you think He likes he wanted power over Tywin and the Martells leaving both Elia and Jamie in his dad hands puts him in a position to appear as their savior and have their families have no choice but support them in fear of what his dad was doing
I'm willing to bet that at least some of the reason people were so ready to revile Jaime as the Kingslayer is because he's a Lannister. Specifically Tywin Lannister's son. Tywin's reputation is brutal and has been long before Robert's Rebellion. And from what i can tell, westerosi society, high society in particular, judges a person a lot based on who their parents are. If any other member of the king's guard had killed the king, especially someone with a reputation like Arthur Dayne of Barristan Selmy, I think a lot more people would've asked questions before making a final judgment. But because the kingslayer was Tywin Lannister's son, westerosi society, particular noble society, decided that they already knew Jaime's motives and that those motives were on par with Tywin waiting until the war was basically over to join the battles, sacked the city, and in all likelihood directly ordered the brutal murders of Elia Martell and her children. I'm not saying Jaime wouldn't have been judged still, but I do think that if he wasn't born a Lannister then people wouldn't have decided they already knew the whole story without ever seeing the crime actually take place or speaking to the person involved.
Totes, I think Tywin's brutality and way over-the-top slaughter of his enemies colored how people saw Jaime when the reality of his actions is almost the complete opposite. It's ironic because although Tywin isn't quite decimating-city levels, it's much easier to imagine him as the man setting everything on fire, so Jaime being the one to intervene and kill someone who is too bloodthirsty is a really interesting contrast to Tywin.
When I think about Jaime killing Aerys, my mind always goes to his choice to sit on the throne afterward, and wondering why he chose to do that. Because, in a way, I think Ned at least would have had a less harsh view of him if he hadn't done that. But I wonder if it was a choice made partly out of shock and emotional volatility. Similar to how people can laugh at a funeral as they're reeling from grief, Jamie can sit on the Iron Throne and chuckle as he is reeling from the impact of what he just had to do. That's just my thought though.
No I definitely think that's incredibly meaningful too, because the way he's seen versus the way he feels is just so starkly in contrast. It's clear that Jaime was really psychologically suffering while serving Aerys, he had to divorce himself from so much brutality in the name of guarding the man who sat on the Iron Throne, so it feels like killing him, seeing how pathetic his death was, and then sitting on the throne and processing what just happened was like, IDK, killing the Wizard of Oz or something? Like everything that kept Jaime in line was symbolic, and he finally snaps and kills all of those symbols and realizes they meant nothing to begin with.
@@HillsAliveYT Now that the king didn't have any power over him anymore it kinda makes sense that he would want to have that moment of relief where there was no king, no one to tell him what to do or make him suffer while bound to oaths and just sitting on the throne himself makes it feel real. I see it as Jamie "blocking" the throne, so just for a moment he can breathe in the freedom that came with killing Aerys before someone new takes his place. But I also like your take. At the end of it all, a throne is just a chair and a king is just a man.
One of my favorite trope deconstructions: you KNOW in other fantasy stories, a knight killing the tyrannical king would be known as a hero for the foreseeable future, and he truly IS one, but due to the circumstances of him "waiting" till victory against the king is essentially already secured (save for any wildfire plots), it really does cast him into a very suspicious light. You almost can't blame Ned being judgmental for Jamie killing him then and not when he had his father and brother killed (which I suspect might be more personal than Ned even realizes, definitely cloaked with the whole honor tarp), but who knows, if Jamie did tell Ned about the wildfire, perhaps he might've been less judgmental. Definitely a situation covered in shades of gray.
Totally! And I find it very interesting that Ned is kind of rightfully suspicious, but that Jaime also specifically remembers watching Rickard and Brandon die as a traumatic event for him personally.
In a way, I think Jaime holding to his silence even though he is in the right, is a dark reflection of Ned's commitment to keeping the truth about Jon.
There is a phrase that Jaime says to Ned when he returns to Kinglanding when Ned accuses him of being an accomplice in the death of his father and brother, being silent and doing nothing while they died, Jaime answers him 'just like the other 500 nobles who were in the hall.' Later Ned decides to trust Littlefinger more than Varys because he is a nobleman, when Jaime had warned him in that sentence that you cannot trust any nobleman, that everyone follows their interests, like those 500 nobles before the death of their father. and brother, a life lesson that Ned didn't feel like taking because came from Jaime
The scene with Jaime and Brienne, were he explains how and why he became the Kingslayer. Was one of the best scenes in the whole damn series. It was the scene that made me start to really like Jaime. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau acted his ass off in that scene. Truly incredible.
Yeah, Nikolaj slayed that scene and made Jaime incredibly sympathetic, LOL both he and Lena played characters that I wished terrible things on but then every time something bad happened to them I'd bawl my eyes out just because the acting was too good.
@@HillsAliveYT Agreed fully, both Nikolaj and Lena are very talented at their craft. How they made you simultaneously sympathize and despise their characters was incredible on their part. The Jaime’s confession scene is one of the few scenes that I think the show did better than the books. And Nikolaj is big part of that.
"If I stabbed the mad king in the belly instead of the back, would you admire me more?" "You served him well...when serving was safe" This exchange between Ned and Jamie I think shows Westerosi sense of morality and honor No one knows of the wild fire, so it just looks like Jamie killed a defenseless (abiet immoral)old man he swore to protect just because Aerys was on the losing side. I'm not sure if he was supposed to go down fighting like Selmy almost did with Rhaegar or just abandon him/lead him to rebels. the latter is betrayal either way but by how much is cloudy to me.
Yeah there is also that, because no one knows about the wildfire, it really does seem like Jaime just killed him for no reason other than maybe to end up on the winning side.
@@HillsAliveYT Even if Ned knew about the wildfire, he'd go "So you decided to be heroic when your father's army was nearby to safe you, but not when my father and brother were being killed?"
A key part of Jaime is the way he pairs with Brienne... both were young, idealistic wannabe-knights who valued chivalry and oathkeeping... Then Jaime discovered that the dude who swore his life to was literally insane, eventually rejected and killed him. Brienne's gonna do the same with Stoneheart, right? The kindly wolf-mother that Brienne thought she swore to is gone, and a shade of vengeance stands in her place. Oathkeeping for the sake of oathkeeping is bad; you gotta decide what's right and wrong for yourself, rather than have some overlord decide for you, etc... (Brienne's sword will probably eventually need to be renamed or lost, I guess...) Was a shame that GoT gave Brienne a pretty bland fantasy arc of "fulfilled her oath and became a great knight. Great job!"... to think that hers was probably one of the least terrible arcs of the cursed final season...
Indeed, the show ruined Brienne's characters. Although I agree that she will break her oath to LSH, I don't think she'll kill her. I believe that is Arya's job. LSH asks about Arya, so their paths should cross. I also think LSH is the best person to make Arya realize that her quest for vengeance is the wrong path.
I quite like what that version of Brienne’s Arc says about why Jaime admires her so much though. Because she represents everything that a Knight should be in a world where so few Knights even try to live up to their oaths, she’s the Knight he wanted to be.
@@Mr-Rinn I dunno, isn't that precisely why she shouldn't become a knight? Getting them to respect each other is great, but that's achieved when Jaime gives Brienne Oathkeeper at the end of ASoS (end of S4, start of S5?). Having Brienne write down all of Jaime's accomplishments in the White Book at the end is awesome I guess, but having another knight say "in the name of the Father, blah blah blah" as he whacks you on the shoulder with a sword has absolutely no correlation with being a good person. Don't dignify knighthood by making Brienne a part of it? They should recognize that the system is garbage and throw it out. Likewise, the whole feudal system is held together by everyone swearing to obey their king, lord, husband, etc. Its a terrible system; they should recognize that and find a better way of doing things. At least that's my reading of the text...
@@Mj_Jetson Sure you could make that argument. But at the same time it’s nice to occasionally see the real deal, especially in a grim and cynical world. And I think that’s just as true for Jaime and part of the reason he starts behaving more honorably.
I think one reason why Jaime was reviled, particularly in Ned's eyes, was that his actions seemed like a power grab for the Lannisters. Tywin was already sacking King's Landing and his attack dogs Gregor and Lorch were disposing of Elia and her kids. Whose to say that, in Ned's eyes, that Jaime killing Aerys was another of Tywin's plans. Jaime sitting on the Iron Throne certainly didn't do him any favours.
That, and a Chekov's wildfire has it's uses. It would be interesting if that is what ends up really turning people against Dany. She uses Drogon to take out certain locations with minimal damage to the city but each spot has wildfire underneath. She gets blamed for somethin out of her control, no one listens when she tries to explain and they just see another Mad King and turn on her.
The Lannister children seem to suffer from some kind of arrested development. Yes, currently they are adults and they seem to be superficially aware of the power their age gives them, but they seem stuck in their teens. Lena Heady said it herself, Cersei is like an out-of-control teenager that grew up without guidance. Jaime and Cersei are in their mid-30s, but they seem to be stuck at 15-16, during a time when they experienced extreme trauma. Tyrion is always trying to chase his 13-year-old dreams of Tysha and happiness. They also do the most reminiscing of their past and the "what-might-have-beens" of their life. It also doesn't help that Tywin still treats them like children, denying them their agency and talking at them rather than with them. These guys are a Freudian's dream project.
Yeah I hadn't read it in a while before this video but I was very impressed at how vivid this entire scene was, there are times where it's SUPER obvious that GRRM has scriptwriting experience, and this was a moment where I could see him seeing the scene in his own mind.
I do think it's telling that Jaime keep ruminating on Ned long after his death. He's like a ghost haunting him. I really hope Jaime gets to find out about R+L=J. I'd love to read his reaction. To see if it recontextualises how he thinks of Ned in a positive way or a negative way.
I’d say it’s because he A: didn’t do it in the field of battle B: got caught before he could get away C: got caught by Ned Stark before Tywin or anyone else got there to spin the narrative
Depending on how Martin ends his arc Jaime Lannister could be the greatest character arc for a single character in all of literature throughout time. He is so complex, deep, and many faceted it boggles. Every time I consider how he is introduced to the story, the part he plays as events unfold, his decisions and why he makes them, he is probably one of the greatest unsung heroes. Someone who is consistently sacrificing himself and his personal desires for people he loves. I really love him. It isn't just that he is self sacrificing on many levels, he does so without bragging about it. He is also that subversion of the golden one. The beautiful warrior, the quarterback, the swaggering studmuffin. That is how the world sees him, but inside he is none of these things. The more you know him the more you see he felt defective long before he lost his swordhand. I hope Martin gives him the ending he deserves.
The intro summarizes things super well, and makes me think that opening up about his actions and revealing the wildfire plot publicly is a necessary part of his redemption. To whom he makes this confession is a good question.
Good take. So in the current book Jamie is trying to regain his honor in some way inspired by how Bre was able to keep her ideals through hardship. But he's struggled with doing to right thing in the past.
I've never quite understood why the Baratheon-Lannister alliance didn't tell everyone about the wildfire. It turns them from usurpers into the saviors of the kingdom, and would probably completely eliminate the possibility of viserys or Daenerys ever being threats as claimants, but with their daddy going from being a tyrant to a supervillain
@@wolfsbanealphas617 yeah I guess maybe the spider told them not to do it that would track, I wonder if we'll ever get confirmation one way or the other. I do wonder what varys told them as to why they shouldn't do it
3:41 somebody enmeshed in westerosi lore I have a question do people smoke in Westeros? because the idea of kings landing not being destroyed by dragons but instead some irresponsible flick of a lit match is anticlimactic as it is comedically hilarious
Nobody smokes, at least not in Westeros (not 100% sure of stuff like opium or other stuff in Essos) but the pyromancers of the alchemists guild are very, very aware of the dangers of wildfire, being the ones who make it, and so have their all their workshops and storages underground and able to be collapsed to smother fire. Most wildfire related disasters are caused by the untrained, the stupid (aerion brightflame drinking a chalice of the stuff), and outside disaster.
@@vibechecker3168 I suppose wine and other alcohols are the substances of choice. I thought with how big the continent is there might be some cash crop instead of just agrarian food production and poppy flowers
Ned and Jaime are two of my favorite characters in the series for good reason. They are both two people who had to deal with great trauma at a young age, and at the other end of that are supposed to figure out what the society around them considers honorable. I love how similarly and differently their characters reacted to this, and of course most of all I love that GRRM's writing structure forces the reader to put together this image on their own. However honor and oaths are the legal connective thread of a feudal society. GRRM has said in interviews its not actually feudal, but for all intents and purposes Westeros is feudal. As such with a feudal society, the different layers of governance and the classes of society are not found in legal writ but in the oaths sworn between Lord and Vassal, all the way down. If someone is generally known to be an oathbreaker in a feudal society, they are essentially an outlaw if they are not the sovereign, and if they are the sovereign they need to expect their vassals to come knockin on their castle with an army. So Jaime is essentially known throughout the land as a man who cannot be trusted, and thus cannot properly exist with their system of governance, even though he saved that land. Another thing I love is that before the start of AGOT all Jaime really knows of Ned Stark is that Aerys killed his father and brother, Rhaegar abducted his sister, he came into the throne room on his horse with an entire retinue of men and silently stared at Jaime until Jaime got off the throne, and then Jaime finds out this quiet and mysterious and icy northern lord somehow killed Jaime's hero, mentor, brother-in-arms, and role model in Arthur Dayne. I absolutely love how GRRM plays with character perspectives not just for his prose and story telling technique, but also how each character's perspective meaningfully affects that character's thoughts and actions. Another great video! Thanks again!
I think this death also draws parallels with Aemon the Dragonknight and Aegon IV. Aegon Iv was an awful king who abused his sister-wife, constantly humiliated his siblings, insulted and tried to disown his son, and sent the kingdom into decades of war and bloodshed because he couldn't keep it in his pants. Yet Aemon defended him to the very end when it was Aegon IV own actions that caused his would-be well-earned demise, and the kingdom would've probably been better off had Aegon died then and there, but Aemon didn't let that happen. He let himself be killed instead of his king, and that same king repaid him by trying to drag his and their sister's name through the mud. However, Aemon's remembered as a hero and honorable knight while Jaime is reviled for ending a war that would've taken the lives of thousands.
I liked what you said about killing Aerys being a trauma response. I will say in defence of Ned and the other Jaime haters of the series, Jaime killing Aerys happens at the same time as his father, who had been sitting out the war up to that point, pretends to be on Aerys's side to get into the city only to stab him in the back and prove his loyalty to Robert by brutally sacking said city and ordering the murders of Elia and her children. It's a don't-trust-a-traitor thing. Don't get me wrong, I think you're right about the point that GRRM is making about oaths, but I don't think distrusting Jaime is unreasonable if you don't know about the wildfyre just because Aerys objectively sucks.
The widespread disdain for Jaime Lannister's assassination of King Aerys stems from a prevalent societal belief in Westeros that equates honor with morality. While maintaining a code of honor might be a pragmatic approach in the chaotic world of Westeros, it doesn't necessarily align with moral righteousness. To illustrate this point, consider Darth Marr from Star Wars. He is perhaps the most honorable Sith Lord, yet his actions and underlying values are far from virtuous, making even a character like Cersei Lannister appear restrained in comparison. A person who follows the law without question, is just as bad as a person who thinks they're above the law. I highly reccomend you check out Darth Marr from star wars. He would be a great example for you to use when you try to make the point of how Honoroable does not equate to good.
Thanks for the suggestion actually! I'm not familiar with Darth Marr but know some Star Wars and I can definitely see the parallels with rules being used in the place of common sense or true moral judgment.
You make an excellent point about the parallels between Jaime & Ned, though I do think you're being a smidge harsh on Ned. It's fair to say that he doesn't want to upset the status quo, but I still think he's an honorable man. More honorable than most. He was definitely wrong to judge Jaime so harshly, but it's also understandable why he did. I suspect that Ned would still want Jaime sent to the Night's Watch if he knew the truth, and he may be wrong for that. However, I do wonder, in an alternate universe, would it fair to officially pardon Jaime for killing Aerys, but send him to the NW for all his other crimes? Kinda like the same way some Mafia bosses get taken down not for murder but for fraud or tax evasion.
What an interesting analysis of Jaime's character! I had never thought of Jaime like that. He keeps thinking of what he became over the years, but I always thought that the part about "the cloak that soiled him" was not sufficiently developed in the book. In effect, we do not know much about what Jaime wants (apart from Cersei). What were his ideals indeed before he entered the KG? What did he believe in? What were his principles? What did he think of himself? Perhaps we'll never know, but I do believe that the hypocrisy of the Westerosi system will be addressed and exposed at the end (and I hope that Jaime won't die).
I'm a simple Lady, I see a Hill's video, I click. I did a "what if Jamie Lannister was sent to the wall after killing Aerys" a few months ago. And I honestly feel that would have been a way better outcome for him. He would have been far away from all the political crap. Like Benjen said "here, a man earns what he earns, when he earns it" no one would care that he was a lannister or who his father was. Jamie is honestly one of my favorite characters and I HATED how dirty they did him in the show. HE should have been the one to kill Cersei.
LOL I cannot imagine how humbled Jaime would be if he went to the Wall. I don't think Tywin would have ever let that happen, but it is WILD to think about how much would be different if Jaime were absent after Aerys' death, I mean literally the entire story that we see in Westeros wouldn't have happened.
I think it's interesting that people like Barristan Selmy and Arthur Daine are seen as the most virtuos men while these Men stood by as Aerys did so many bad things, but they can hide behind their honour a concept that while good in principle has been utterly perverted.
I missed your videos! 🥰 Glad to see you back with another banger. Also, I just realized that I totally missed the notification for your previous video abotu Aegon & Helaena, so I'm gonna go watch that now. ☺
I wonder if Jaime had told Ned, wether Ned would have understood, or doubled down and been like "killing Aerys wasn't enough? now you betray his secrets!", lol
"I killed the king to save my father and the city from destruction" "I raised my sister's son as my bastard to protect him from those who want the iron throne" "That's rough buddy"
hi 😭👋🏻 early asl but just wanted to say your videos are always fire and so well done. i'm someone with such a short attention span or has to do multiple things at once but these usually can pull me in without fail on their own. thanks for the videos
TLDR: It doesn't really make sense that the person of the King is seen as inviolate as it is in Westeros, and it's one of those things that GRRM took from medieval European tradition that doesn't really translate that well into Westeros, because religious power in Westeros is much less centralized than it was in medieval Europe, giving it a lesser influence over people's viewpoints. It's a little incongruous just how much they hate him for Kingslaying in Westeros. That's one of those things that GRRM pulled from real medieval history, but doesn't quite line up with the differences that separates Westeros from Medieval Europe. Part of it is oaths and social expectations are the entire foundation of feudal social structure, in a way that doesn't exist any more since we codify our laws and write them down, as well as protect basic rights with things like Constitutions. But as you touch on in the video, the entire social structure of Westeros rests on the King keeping his word to his subjects by fulfilling his feudal obligations of protection and justice, while they must keep their word to him in the form of obedience and service. However because it's unwritten, it's not quite as transactional as it seems, and there isn't really any mechanism for saying "Ok, you're not upholding your side of the feudal contract, so we're replacing you now." That's what many conflicts in the Middle Ages centered around, was how do we check the King's power, without violating his person or his dignity. Which gets us to even the bigger point I think: religion. In Medieval Europe, Kings were chosen by God, and anointed by Archbishops and Popes to rule over the rest of men. Killing a King, especially for the purpose of replacing him on the throne, was tantamount to saying that you know better than God who should rule, which was the kind of blasphemy that would get you universally shunned, if not excommunicated and killed. However since Westerosi culture is so much less religious than its medieval European counterparts, it's a little incongruous that the person of the King is seen as inviolate in the same way ass it would be in somewhere like England or France. Aerys wasn't king because the Gods determined he should be King. He is King because he inherited his throne from ancestors who had the biggest WMDs around. And the Starry Sept didn't wield nearly as much influence across Westeros before Aegon's Conquest as Rome did across Europe.
I find it curious, that you point out, that it was trauma, not moral that made him decide to kill the king, when it was moral, that made it a trauma to serve as a kinguard to begin with. We see many examples of supposedly better and worse men serving that position without a reaction like his. The mountain or trant for sure would never consider it harmful to themselfs to be witness and bystanders of cruelties . . . ironically it is Jamies high inner expectation of moral behavior that created the trauma which lead to his decission to kill the king.
Hills Alive once again never missing with the character analysis! I honestly do love this look at Jaime so much! I did want to know tho, do you think you'll ever do a video on the fifth part of Random Internet Guy's Petyr Baelish Theory series (the "Get Gaslight, Gatekept and Girlbossed by Ghosts in HarrenHall)? (I mainly ask this because I saw you comment on that video, and ever since my brain has gaslit me into thinking that the comment was a video that you made that I just keep on failing to find 😭)
If I think about it, no matter who will destroy a Huge Part of King's Landing with Wildfire or maybe all of it, Jaime is equally responsible for its destruction because neither does he stop Cersei from making more nor does he tell anyone about Aerys entire stock.🤔 So, no matter who will become King of the Seven Kingdoms in the End, whether it is Bran or Jon or Daenerys, I think Kings Landing won't be the Capital anymore, mostly because this Story proved that its military and Economic standpoint is one of the Weakest in all of the Kingdoms. Aegon indeed didn't do his Family any Favour when he decided that this Place would be a good Spot for their Capital, because in the End he probably only chose this Spot because it was at a big and important River and relatively near to Dragonstone.
A regicide is not only a crime , it is also a taboo .The king , the highest position of all , the father of a nation had been killed . Such a crime can not be tolerated because that would mean people can do everything they want . I can see a parallel between a parricide/matricide and an infanticide . It is so easy for parents to get their children killed and getting away with it while parricide /matricide is heavely punished ,reviled since ages . Even today , if a child says my family is toxic I have to stay away from them for my own safety , they are shamed . There is also a huge form of hypocrisy because Jaime did basically the dirty work for Robert . Robert would have not allowed the Mad King to live not only to secure the throne for himself but also because of his immense hatred of the Mad King . Even if the Mad King did not try to explode the city , I do not see him surviving in any way. It is why Jaime was not punished , his sister even get to marry Robert BUT he won't get rewarder either and he has to be shamed all of his life and to be a scapegoat to maintain the status quo .
Moreover , after the King and Rhaegar 's deaths , technically it should be Elia Martell's eldest son who should be king , right ? However , not only they were killed in such a gruesome way but outside Dorne people do not seem to care that much about their demise . Was it not a regicide ? After all , I did not read the book , was the child killed before the Mad King or after ? Years after , Robert wants to kill Viserys and Daenerys , only Ned seems to oppose him on that matter . Killing Viserys would count as a regicide or since his dynasty was overthroned it doesn't count anymore ? If that does not count anymore , that would mean that if the Mad King had not been killed but just jailed would have been okay for Robert to kill him and getting away with murder because the Mad King was deposed ?
Interesting that you place Jaime and Ned as counterpoints to one another. In his own story Ned is also a relatively young man raised on ideas of honor only to have those ideas crushed by the raw brutality of Westeros and war. While at the point that he arrives in King's Landing he does not know of Lyanna's fate, he knows enough to have a good idea of what her last few months have been like ( based on what he knows). Ned's statement about waiting for Jaime to say something, may have been him asking for an answer to the unspoken question not " why did you do it?" but "What took you so long?"
14:12 I wouldn't exactly say ned is beloved in universe outside of his own region and a few close friends( which I would say applies to most high lords). If you mean by fans then that is another issue.
I was always annoyed how the show whitewashed Jaime in many ways. Whereas in the books he is still not a good person at all and his so-called "redemption arc" isn't really there.
It also doesn’t help that after he slayed the king he sat back and let the rest of the royal family get murdered around him. If Jaimie wanted to claim being a good kingsgaurd he should have attempted to save the rest of the royal family.
I wonder if Jaime ever blames Cersei for his lot in life. If she wasnt in love with him he would be able to marry and be the heir to Castely Rock. He would not have been traumtised like this. This becomes far worse because Cersei never thanked him when she becomes queen. All Cersei's ambitions are made true by Jaime and he gets nothing in return. In a way he is her selfless knight.
When it comes down to it, if you look at his true nature, Jaime is not at all that dissimilar to the horses he trains for & rides to battle. Both in books and show, he's very much a horse person, as anyone used to animals can tell. It's easy to see why - he sees himself in them. For all his flaws & negative traits, he's selfless to a very unhealthy degree - an equine degree more than a human one.
The Targaryen were leech Lords, landlords of a foreign people. Refusing to interact or breed with them to keep their blood pressure from the comments. Jaehaerys the conciliator was the first true ruler of a people and not some landlord with a dragon.
Good video! :) However, I can't justify Jaime's actions, not even the m*rder of Aerys. If anyone can break their oaths and commit m*rder whenever they feel like it, what's the purpose of oaths or contracts? Why do we even have a justice system? If right and wrong are so clear-cut, why don't we just take matters into our own hands and punish m*rderers, p*dophiles, or the clinically insane ourselves? Or better yet, why not let random police officers decide who lives and di*s based on their personal beliefs We and jaime are living in a society with rules and customs. Jaime clearly doesn't give a sh*t about anything. He wasn't the one to decide aerys' fate. His job was it to protect him.
He also as a knight swore an oath to protect the innocent and defenseless. So which oath do you keep in that moment. Your oath to protect a Mad King or the thousands of innocent people that King was about to murder.
Random cops do kill people based on their own beliefs all the time and then get away with it… They even get revered. Random ppl donated millions of dollars to the cop who killed Trayvon Martin
There's an interesting parallel between Jaime and Barristan in this. Jaime broke his oath, killed Aerys super dishonorably by stabbing him in the back, saved the day. Barristan rescued Aerys from Duskendale, and in the process he was incredibly knightly, brave, daring, self-sacrificing - all the buzzwords. And it made the world SOOOOOOO much worse overall. GRRM is definitely trying to make a statement about the ascetics of looking heroic versus the reality of doing good deeds...
Excellent point. The fact that Selmy ponders on this decision make me wonder if the theory that he'll betray Dany for Aegon will come true. The theory by BryndenBFish suggests that Selmy will have doubts about some of Dany's decisions, and those doubts will make him fear that she may be like her father. Moreover, the guilt he has over failing Rhaegar, and failing to protect his children, will compound itself to his guilt for saving Aerys II, and will compel him to help Aegon against Dany. I don't want it to happen, but it's a very convincing theory.
@@Mic-Mak That would be really fun to see... Barristan is obliviously ecstatic to serve Rhaegar's son, meanwhile the Golden Company members pretend to be thrilled to have him on their side and hide the fact that they all hate his guts for killing Maelys. Though with the Barristan-Criston Cole parallels and Skahaz's crossbows, I'd kinda assumed Barristan would die a stupid pointless death right outside the walls of Meereen during the Battle of Fire...
Barristan is not the first Kingsguard to save a king to the realms detriment, if Aemon the Dragonknight had not died defending his brother than the Blackfyre rebellions may never have occurred. I am sure there are other stories of great knights defending bad Kings in Westeros. Aerys' Kingsguard is held up as one of the most distinguished in recent memory and Jaime's chapters show just how thin that veneer was. Martin does not paint a good picture of knighthood throughout his tale.
Excellent observation. I often wonder how Jaime would react if he learned about Jon's alleged parentage. Thinking about his fever dreams in A Storm of Swords. Only reason I brought it up.
there's also the fact that its very likely that barristan threw the joust where he was unhorsed by rhaegar. he mentions that if he had been "a better knight" rhaegar wouldn't have crowned lyanna and he would've crowned ashara instead. barristan will be the first to tell us that being a knight is about more than just fighting and knocking men off horses so his assertion that his losing a joust makes him a lesser knight is wild. that probably means that Rhaegar who we believe was using the tourney to conspire against aerys, probably ordered him to throw the joust so that he could crown Lyanna and set his plan into motion. on the outside both rhaegar and barristan seem very knightly at the joust (before rhaegar humiliates his wife) and it seems like they both jousted honorably and everything was above board but underneath the surface everything is tainted. it feels like everything at harrenhal was similarly tainted under the surface despite seeming like the kind of glamorous beautiful event Sansa might fantasize about.
The scene between him and Brienne was amazing and Jamie's reaction at seeing KL in ruins is what reminded me that the wildfire was never addressed again. Even after being dubbed the Kingslayer, he could have addressed it with the new king. Maybe after all the trauma, killing Aerys, and the reaction afterwards, Jamie was just done.
Jamie went from being a character I was not super into at all into a one of the characters I like the re-reads of most. He's truly one of GRRM's gems of writing across works.
Yeah he's actually the most re-readable Lannister to me.
@@HillsAliveYTwhy do you think
Rhaegar left a newbie knight to watch over Elia . I think because rhaegar is more like his father then we realize just better at making you think
He likes he wanted power over Tywin and the Martells leaving both Elia and Jamie in his dad hands puts him in a position to appear as their savior and have their families have no choice but support them in fear of what his dad was doing
@@wolfsbanealphas617 more like his father than most think, just more likable! a pity that neither Tywin or Doran would have been fooled by that.
@@harpereloise7973 that’s why I think 🤔 Tywin really sacked the city rhaegar audacity was the last straw and why Doran sent such newbie men to war
For the Algorithm!!
I'm willing to bet that at least some of the reason people were so ready to revile Jaime as the Kingslayer is because he's a Lannister. Specifically Tywin Lannister's son. Tywin's reputation is brutal and has been long before Robert's Rebellion. And from what i can tell, westerosi society, high society in particular, judges a person a lot based on who their parents are. If any other member of the king's guard had killed the king, especially someone with a reputation like Arthur Dayne of Barristan Selmy, I think a lot more people would've asked questions before making a final judgment. But because the kingslayer was Tywin Lannister's son, westerosi society, particular noble society, decided that they already knew Jaime's motives and that those motives were on par with Tywin waiting until the war was basically over to join the battles, sacked the city, and in all likelihood directly ordered the brutal murders of Elia Martell and her children. I'm not saying Jaime wouldn't have been judged still, but I do think that if he wasn't born a Lannister then people wouldn't have decided they already knew the whole story without ever seeing the crime actually take place or speaking to the person involved.
Totes, I think Tywin's brutality and way over-the-top slaughter of his enemies colored how people saw Jaime when the reality of his actions is almost the complete opposite. It's ironic because although Tywin isn't quite decimating-city levels, it's much easier to imagine him as the man setting everything on fire, so Jaime being the one to intervene and kill someone who is too bloodthirsty is a really interesting contrast to Tywin.
When I think about Jaime killing Aerys, my mind always goes to his choice to sit on the throne afterward, and wondering why he chose to do that. Because, in a way, I think Ned at least would have had a less harsh view of him if he hadn't done that. But I wonder if it was a choice made partly out of shock and emotional volatility. Similar to how people can laugh at a funeral as they're reeling from grief, Jamie can sit on the Iron Throne and chuckle as he is reeling from the impact of what he just had to do. That's just my thought though.
No I definitely think that's incredibly meaningful too, because the way he's seen versus the way he feels is just so starkly in contrast. It's clear that Jaime was really psychologically suffering while serving Aerys, he had to divorce himself from so much brutality in the name of guarding the man who sat on the Iron Throne, so it feels like killing him, seeing how pathetic his death was, and then sitting on the throne and processing what just happened was like, IDK, killing the Wizard of Oz or something? Like everything that kept Jaime in line was symbolic, and he finally snaps and kills all of those symbols and realizes they meant nothing to begin with.
I agree. It also probably connects to his disassociation. Since he is "playing a role" he might as well set the stage and play it to it's fullest.
@@HillsAliveYT Now that the king didn't have any power over him anymore it kinda makes sense that he would want to have that moment of relief where there was no king, no one to tell him what to do or make him suffer while bound to oaths and just sitting on the throne himself makes it feel real. I see it as Jamie "blocking" the throne, so just for a moment he can breathe in the freedom that came with killing Aerys before someone new takes his place. But I also like your take. At the end of it all, a throne is just a chair and a king is just a man.
One of my favorite trope deconstructions: you KNOW in other fantasy stories, a knight killing the tyrannical king would be known as a hero for the foreseeable future, and he truly IS one, but due to the circumstances of him "waiting" till victory against the king is essentially already secured (save for any wildfire plots), it really does cast him into a very suspicious light. You almost can't blame Ned being judgmental for Jamie killing him then and not when he had his father and brother killed (which I suspect might be more personal than Ned even realizes, definitely cloaked with the whole honor tarp), but who knows, if Jamie did tell Ned about the wildfire, perhaps he might've been less judgmental. Definitely a situation covered in shades of gray.
Totally! And I find it very interesting that Ned is kind of rightfully suspicious, but that Jaime also specifically remembers watching Rickard and Brandon die as a traumatic event for him personally.
Jaime killed Aerys for demanding his father Tywin's head
Tywin returned the favor by having Princess Elia and her kids killed which still haunts Jaime
In a way, I think Jaime holding to his silence even though he is in the right, is a dark reflection of Ned's commitment to keeping the truth about Jon.
There is a phrase that Jaime says to Ned when he returns to Kinglanding when Ned accuses him of being an accomplice in the death of his father and brother, being silent and doing nothing while they died, Jaime answers him 'just like the other 500 nobles who were in the hall.' Later Ned decides to trust Littlefinger more than Varys because he is a nobleman, when Jaime had warned him in that sentence that you cannot trust any nobleman, that everyone follows their interests, like those 500 nobles before the death of their father. and brother, a life lesson that Ned didn't feel like taking because came from Jaime
The scene with Jaime and Brienne, were he explains how and why he became the Kingslayer. Was one of the best scenes in the whole damn series. It was the scene that made me start to really like Jaime. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau acted his ass off in that scene. Truly incredible.
Yeah, Nikolaj slayed that scene and made Jaime incredibly sympathetic, LOL both he and Lena played characters that I wished terrible things on but then every time something bad happened to them I'd bawl my eyes out just because the acting was too good.
@@HillsAliveYT Agreed fully, both Nikolaj and Lena are very talented at their craft. How they made you simultaneously sympathize and despise their characters was incredible on their part. The Jaime’s confession scene is one of the few scenes that I think the show did better than the books. And Nikolaj is big part of that.
It's different in the book.
"If I stabbed the mad king in the belly instead of the back, would you admire me more?"
"You served him well...when serving was safe"
This exchange between Ned and Jamie I think shows Westerosi sense of morality and honor
No one knows of the wild fire, so it just looks like Jamie killed a defenseless (abiet immoral)old man he swore to protect just because Aerys was on the losing side. I'm not sure if he was supposed to go down fighting like Selmy almost did with Rhaegar or just abandon him/lead him to rebels. the latter is betrayal either way but by how much is cloudy to me.
Yeah there is also that, because no one knows about the wildfire, it really does seem like Jaime just killed him for no reason other than maybe to end up on the winning side.
"When serving was safe." Because Jaime didn't break his vow when Ned's father and brother were being executed.
@@HillsAliveYT Even if Ned knew about the wildfire, he'd go "So you decided to be heroic when your father's army was nearby to safe you, but not when my father and brother were being killed?"
A key part of Jaime is the way he pairs with Brienne... both were young, idealistic wannabe-knights who valued chivalry and oathkeeping... Then Jaime discovered that the dude who swore his life to was literally insane, eventually rejected and killed him. Brienne's gonna do the same with Stoneheart, right? The kindly wolf-mother that Brienne thought she swore to is gone, and a shade of vengeance stands in her place. Oathkeeping for the sake of oathkeeping is bad; you gotta decide what's right and wrong for yourself, rather than have some overlord decide for you, etc... (Brienne's sword will probably eventually need to be renamed or lost, I guess...) Was a shame that GoT gave Brienne a pretty bland fantasy arc of "fulfilled her oath and became a great knight. Great job!"... to think that hers was probably one of the least terrible arcs of the cursed final season...
Indeed, the show ruined Brienne's characters. Although I agree that she will break her oath to LSH, I don't think she'll kill her. I believe that is Arya's job. LSH asks about Arya, so their paths should cross. I also think LSH is the best person to make Arya realize that her quest for vengeance is the wrong path.
I quite like what that version of Brienne’s Arc says about why Jaime admires her so much though. Because she represents everything that a Knight should be in a world where so few Knights even try to live up to their oaths, she’s the Knight he wanted to be.
@@Mr-Rinn I dunno, isn't that precisely why she shouldn't become a knight? Getting them to respect each other is great, but that's achieved when Jaime gives Brienne Oathkeeper at the end of ASoS (end of S4, start of S5?). Having Brienne write down all of Jaime's accomplishments in the White Book at the end is awesome I guess, but having another knight say "in the name of the Father, blah blah blah" as he whacks you on the shoulder with a sword has absolutely no correlation with being a good person. Don't dignify knighthood by making Brienne a part of it? They should recognize that the system is garbage and throw it out. Likewise, the whole feudal system is held together by everyone swearing to obey their king, lord, husband, etc. Its a terrible system; they should recognize that and find a better way of doing things. At least that's my reading of the text...
@@Mj_Jetson Sure you could make that argument. But at the same time it’s nice to occasionally see the real deal, especially in a grim and cynical world. And I think that’s just as true for Jaime and part of the reason he starts behaving more honorably.
I think one reason why Jaime was reviled, particularly in Ned's eyes, was that his actions seemed like a power grab for the Lannisters. Tywin was already sacking King's Landing and his attack dogs Gregor and Lorch were disposing of Elia and her kids. Whose to say that, in Ned's eyes, that Jaime killing Aerys was another of Tywin's plans. Jaime sitting on the Iron Throne certainly didn't do him any favours.
In all fairness Jaime also swire to keep the secrets of the King. He explained that he'd already broken one oath he didn't want to break yet another
That, and a Chekov's wildfire has it's uses.
It would be interesting if that is what ends up really turning people against Dany. She uses Drogon to take out certain locations with minimal damage to the city but each spot has wildfire underneath. She gets blamed for somethin out of her control, no one listens when she tries to explain and they just see another Mad King and turn on her.
The Lannister children seem to suffer from some kind of arrested development.
Yes, currently they are adults and they seem to be superficially aware of the power their age gives them, but they seem stuck in their teens. Lena Heady said it herself, Cersei is like an out-of-control teenager that grew up without guidance.
Jaime and Cersei are in their mid-30s, but they seem to be stuck at 15-16, during a time when they experienced extreme trauma. Tyrion is always trying to chase his 13-year-old dreams of Tysha and happiness. They also do the most reminiscing of their past and the "what-might-have-beens" of their life.
It also doesn't help that Tywin still treats them like children, denying them their agency and talking at them rather than with them.
These guys are a Freudian's dream project.
LOL and that definitely jives with the fact that the Lannisters seem to consistently choose teenagers as their mortal enemies.
@@HillsAliveYT😮was rhaegar Tywin mortal enemy because most of his actions at the targs effect rhaegar more then aerys
Jaime's perspective of his killing of Aerys is some of George's best work. The simple "Rossart's" is brilliant by Jaime.
Yeah I hadn't read it in a while before this video but I was very impressed at how vivid this entire scene was, there are times where it's SUPER obvious that GRRM has scriptwriting experience, and this was a moment where I could see him seeing the scene in his own mind.
I do think it's telling that Jaime keep ruminating on Ned long after his death. He's like a ghost haunting him. I really hope Jaime gets to find out about R+L=J. I'd love to read his reaction. To see if it recontextualises how he thinks of Ned in a positive way or a negative way.
I’d say it’s because he
A: didn’t do it in the field of battle
B: got caught before he could get away
C: got caught by Ned Stark before Tywin or anyone else got there to spin the narrative
Depending on how Martin ends his arc Jaime Lannister could be the greatest character arc for a single character in all of literature throughout time. He is so complex, deep, and many faceted it boggles. Every time I consider how he is introduced to the story, the part he plays as events unfold, his decisions and why he makes them, he is probably one of the greatest unsung heroes. Someone who is consistently sacrificing himself and his personal desires for people he loves. I really love him. It isn't just that he is self sacrificing on many levels, he does so without bragging about it. He is also that subversion of the golden one. The beautiful warrior, the quarterback, the swaggering studmuffin. That is how the world sees him, but inside he is none of these things. The more you know him the more you see he felt defective long before he lost his swordhand. I hope Martin gives him the ending he deserves.
another banger from hill's alive
The intro summarizes things super well, and makes me think that opening up about his actions and revealing the wildfire plot publicly is a necessary part of his redemption. To whom he makes this confession is a good question.
Good take. So in the current book Jamie is trying to regain his honor in some way inspired by how Bre was able to keep her ideals through hardship. But he's struggled with doing to right thing in the past.
I've never quite understood why the Baratheon-Lannister alliance didn't tell everyone about the wildfire. It turns them from usurpers into the saviors of the kingdom, and would probably completely eliminate the possibility of viserys or Daenerys ever being threats as claimants, but with their daddy going from being a tyrant to a supervillain
Varys wants aegon on the throne using the targ name he can’t have it destroyed in such a way
@@wolfsbanealphas617 yeah I guess maybe the spider told them not to do it that would track, I wonder if we'll ever get confirmation one way or the other. I do wonder what varys told them as to why they shouldn't do it
3:41 somebody enmeshed in westerosi lore I have a question
do people smoke in Westeros?
because the idea of kings landing not being destroyed by dragons but instead some irresponsible flick of a lit match is anticlimactic as it is comedically hilarious
Nobody smokes, at least not in Westeros (not 100% sure of stuff like opium or other stuff in Essos) but the pyromancers of the alchemists guild are very, very aware of the dangers of wildfire, being the ones who make it, and so have their all their workshops and storages underground and able to be collapsed to smother fire. Most wildfire related disasters are caused by the untrained, the stupid (aerion brightflame drinking a chalice of the stuff), and outside disaster.
@@vibechecker3168 I suppose wine and other alcohols are the substances of choice. I thought with how big the continent is there might be some cash crop instead of just agrarian food production and poppy flowers
Ned and Jaime are two of my favorite characters in the series for good reason. They are both two people who had to deal with great trauma at a young age, and at the other end of that are supposed to figure out what the society around them considers honorable. I love how similarly and differently their characters reacted to this, and of course most of all I love that GRRM's writing structure forces the reader to put together this image on their own. However honor and oaths are the legal connective thread of a feudal society. GRRM has said in interviews its not actually feudal, but for all intents and purposes Westeros is feudal. As such with a feudal society, the different layers of governance and the classes of society are not found in legal writ but in the oaths sworn between Lord and Vassal, all the way down. If someone is generally known to be an oathbreaker in a feudal society, they are essentially an outlaw if they are not the sovereign, and if they are the sovereign they need to expect their vassals to come knockin on their castle with an army. So Jaime is essentially known throughout the land as a man who cannot be trusted, and thus cannot properly exist with their system of governance, even though he saved that land. Another thing I love is that before the start of AGOT all Jaime really knows of Ned Stark is that Aerys killed his father and brother, Rhaegar abducted his sister, he came into the throne room on his horse with an entire retinue of men and silently stared at Jaime until Jaime got off the throne, and then Jaime finds out this quiet and mysterious and icy northern lord somehow killed Jaime's hero, mentor, brother-in-arms, and role model in Arthur Dayne. I absolutely love how GRRM plays with character perspectives not just for his prose and story telling technique, but also how each character's perspective meaningfully affects that character's thoughts and actions. Another great video! Thanks again!
My first guess would be he killed a king, a mad one also.
🤯
I think this death also draws parallels with Aemon the Dragonknight and Aegon IV. Aegon Iv was an awful king who abused his sister-wife, constantly humiliated his siblings, insulted and tried to disown his son, and sent the kingdom into decades of war and bloodshed because he couldn't keep it in his pants. Yet Aemon defended him to the very end when it was Aegon IV own actions that caused his would-be well-earned demise, and the kingdom would've probably been better off had Aegon died then and there, but Aemon didn't let that happen. He let himself be killed instead of his king, and that same king repaid him by trying to drag his and their sister's name through the mud. However, Aemon's remembered as a hero and honorable knight while Jaime is reviled for ending a war that would've taken the lives of thousands.
I liked what you said about killing Aerys being a trauma response.
I will say in defence of Ned and the other Jaime haters of the series, Jaime killing Aerys happens at the same time as his father, who had been sitting out the war up to that point, pretends to be on Aerys's side to get into the city only to stab him in the back and prove his loyalty to Robert by brutally sacking said city and ordering the murders of Elia and her children. It's a don't-trust-a-traitor thing.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're right about the point that GRRM is making about oaths, but I don't think distrusting Jaime is unreasonable if you don't know about the wildfyre just because Aerys objectively sucks.
Men will kill the king they're serving before going to therapy. Smdh
😂
As always we love Hill's Alive. Great Content 💕💖🤩😍
The widespread disdain for Jaime Lannister's assassination of King Aerys stems from a prevalent societal belief in Westeros that equates honor with morality. While maintaining a code of honor might be a pragmatic approach in the chaotic world of Westeros, it doesn't necessarily align with moral righteousness. To illustrate this point, consider Darth Marr from Star Wars. He is perhaps the most honorable Sith Lord, yet his actions and underlying values are far from virtuous, making even a character like Cersei Lannister appear restrained in comparison. A person who follows the law without question, is just as bad as a person who thinks they're above the law. I highly reccomend you check out Darth Marr from star wars. He would be a great example for you to use when you try to make the point of how Honoroable does not equate to good.
Thanks for the suggestion actually! I'm not familiar with Darth Marr but know some Star Wars and I can definitely see the parallels with rules being used in the place of common sense or true moral judgment.
You make an excellent point about the parallels between Jaime & Ned, though I do think you're being a smidge harsh on Ned. It's fair to say that he doesn't want to upset the status quo, but I still think he's an honorable man. More honorable than most. He was definitely wrong to judge Jaime so harshly, but it's also understandable why he did. I suspect that Ned would still want Jaime sent to the Night's Watch if he knew the truth, and he may be wrong for that. However, I do wonder, in an alternate universe, would it fair to officially pardon Jaime for killing Aerys, but send him to the NW for all his other crimes? Kinda like the same way some Mafia bosses get taken down not for murder but for fraud or tax evasion.
I love your takes, Jaime is interesting and I find myself agreeing with you
What an interesting analysis of Jaime's character! I had never thought of Jaime like that. He keeps thinking of what he became over the years, but I always thought that the part about "the cloak that soiled him" was not sufficiently developed in the book. In effect, we do not know much about what Jaime wants (apart from Cersei). What were his ideals indeed before he entered the KG? What did he believe in? What were his principles? What did he think of himself? Perhaps we'll never know, but I do believe that the hypocrisy of the Westerosi system will be addressed and exposed at the end (and I hope that Jaime won't die).
I'm a simple Lady, I see a Hill's video, I click. I did a "what if Jamie Lannister was sent to the wall after killing Aerys" a few months ago. And I honestly feel that would have been a way better outcome for him. He would have been far away from all the political crap. Like Benjen said "here, a man earns what he earns, when he earns it" no one would care that he was a lannister or who his father was. Jamie is honestly one of my favorite characters and I HATED how dirty they did him in the show. HE should have been the one to kill Cersei.
LOL I cannot imagine how humbled Jaime would be if he went to the Wall. I don't think Tywin would have ever let that happen, but it is WILD to think about how much would be different if Jaime were absent after Aerys' death, I mean literally the entire story that we see in Westeros wouldn't have happened.
@@HillsAliveYTI feel no matter what Cersei’s kids will be bastards probably from kevan son
Man+Sword+King= Kingslayer
Man+Sword+Family= Kinslayer
Man+Sword+Man= Slayer
Balerion+Rats= Ratslayer
Joffrey+Cats= Catslayer
Raymund Frey+Catelyn Stark= Catslayer
Man+Shotgun+Demons= Doomslayer
Edit: spelling
Joffrey+Pie=?
Catspaw + Dagger = Branslayer
Summer = Catspaw Slayer
Sam + Obsidian Knife + Other = the Slayer
I think it's interesting that people like Barristan Selmy and Arthur Daine are seen as the most virtuos men while these Men stood by as Aerys did so many bad things, but they can hide behind their honour a concept that while good in principle has been utterly perverted.
Was juuuuust thinking of your channel! Cant wait to watch your Amazing Take, on my office break! :).
Been waiting for this, another great video!
Your videos rock! Thank you very much.
I missed your videos! 🥰 Glad to see you back with another banger. Also, I just realized that I totally missed the notification for your previous video abotu Aegon & Helaena, so I'm gonna go watch that now. ☺
I wonder if Jaime had told Ned, wether Ned would have understood, or doubled down and been like "killing Aerys wasn't enough? now you betray his secrets!", lol
"I killed the king to save my father and the city from destruction"
"I raised my sister's son as my bastard to protect him from those who want the iron throne"
"That's rough buddy"
i love your videos!
hell yeah!!! new video from the queen herself about my favourite character!!!! thank you for your amazing analysis!!
Does anyone else feel like listening to Hill’s Alive analyses-and some of the viewers’ comments-could make you a better writer?
hi 😭👋🏻 early asl but just wanted to say your videos are always fire and so well done. i'm someone with such a short attention span or has to do multiple things at once but these usually can pull me in without fail on their own.
thanks for the videos
Thank you so much!!
TLDR: It doesn't really make sense that the person of the King is seen as inviolate as it is in Westeros, and it's one of those things that GRRM took from medieval European tradition that doesn't really translate that well into Westeros, because religious power in Westeros is much less centralized than it was in medieval Europe, giving it a lesser influence over people's viewpoints.
It's a little incongruous just how much they hate him for Kingslaying in Westeros. That's one of those things that GRRM pulled from real medieval history, but doesn't quite line up with the differences that separates Westeros from Medieval Europe.
Part of it is oaths and social expectations are the entire foundation of feudal social structure, in a way that doesn't exist any more since we codify our laws and write them down, as well as protect basic rights with things like Constitutions. But as you touch on in the video, the entire social structure of Westeros rests on the King keeping his word to his subjects by fulfilling his feudal obligations of protection and justice, while they must keep their word to him in the form of obedience and service. However because it's unwritten, it's not quite as transactional as it seems, and there isn't really any mechanism for saying "Ok, you're not upholding your side of the feudal contract, so we're replacing you now." That's what many conflicts in the Middle Ages centered around, was how do we check the King's power, without violating his person or his dignity.
Which gets us to even the bigger point I think: religion. In Medieval Europe, Kings were chosen by God, and anointed by Archbishops and Popes to rule over the rest of men. Killing a King, especially for the purpose of replacing him on the throne, was tantamount to saying that you know better than God who should rule, which was the kind of blasphemy that would get you universally shunned, if not excommunicated and killed.
However since Westerosi culture is so much less religious than its medieval European counterparts, it's a little incongruous that the person of the King is seen as inviolate in the same way ass it would be in somewhere like England or France. Aerys wasn't king because the Gods determined he should be King. He is King because he inherited his throne from ancestors who had the biggest WMDs around. And the Starry Sept didn't wield nearly as much influence across Westeros before Aegon's Conquest as Rome did across Europe.
I find it curious, that you point out, that it was trauma, not moral that made him decide to kill the king, when it was moral, that made it a trauma to serve as a kinguard to begin with. We see many examples of supposedly better and worse men serving that position without a reaction like his. The mountain or trant for sure would never consider it harmful to themselfs to be witness and bystanders of cruelties . . . ironically it is Jamies high inner expectation of moral behavior that created the trauma which lead to his decission to kill the king.
Hills Alive once again never missing with the character analysis!
I honestly do love this look at Jaime so much! I did want to know tho, do you think you'll ever do a video on the fifth part of Random Internet Guy's Petyr Baelish Theory series (the "Get Gaslight, Gatekept and Girlbossed by Ghosts in HarrenHall)?
(I mainly ask this because I saw you comment on that video, and ever since my brain has gaslit me into thinking that the comment was a video that you made that I just keep on failing to find 😭)
If I think about it, no matter who will destroy a Huge Part of King's Landing with Wildfire or maybe all of it, Jaime is equally responsible for its destruction because neither does he stop Cersei from making more nor does he tell anyone about Aerys entire stock.🤔 So, no matter who will become King of the Seven Kingdoms in the End, whether it is Bran or Jon or Daenerys, I think Kings Landing won't be the Capital anymore, mostly because this Story proved that its military and Economic standpoint is one of the Weakest in all of the Kingdoms. Aegon indeed didn't do his Family any Favour when he decided that this Place would be a good Spot for their Capital, because in the End he probably only chose this Spot because it was at a big and important River and relatively near to Dragonstone.
Agreed, I expect the end of the books to be the end of King’s Landing too, it makes sense symbolically with the conclusion of the Targaryen dynasty.
I love your videos
A regicide is not only a crime , it is also a taboo .The king , the highest position of all , the father of a nation had been killed . Such a crime can not be tolerated because that would mean people can do everything they want . I can see a parallel between a parricide/matricide and an infanticide . It is so easy for parents to get their children killed and getting away with it while parricide /matricide is heavely punished ,reviled since ages . Even today , if a child says my family is toxic I have to stay away from them for my own safety , they are shamed . There is also a huge form of hypocrisy because Jaime did basically the dirty work for Robert . Robert would have not allowed the Mad King to live not only to secure the throne for himself but also because of his immense hatred of the Mad King . Even if the Mad King did not try to explode the city , I do not see him surviving in any way. It is why Jaime was not punished , his sister even get to marry Robert BUT he won't get rewarder either and he has to be shamed all of his life and to be a scapegoat to maintain the status quo .
Moreover , after the King and Rhaegar 's deaths , technically it should be Elia Martell's eldest son who should be king , right ? However , not only they were killed in such a gruesome way but outside Dorne people do not seem to care that much about their demise . Was it not a regicide ? After all , I did not read the book , was the child killed before the Mad King or after ?
Years after , Robert wants to kill Viserys and Daenerys , only Ned seems to oppose him on that matter .
Killing Viserys would count as a regicide or since his dynasty was overthroned it doesn't count anymore ?
If that does not count anymore , that would mean that if the Mad King had not been killed but just jailed would have been okay for Robert to kill him and getting away with murder because the Mad King was deposed ?
Interesting that you place Jaime and Ned as counterpoints to one another. In his own story Ned is also a relatively young man raised on ideas of honor only to have those ideas crushed by the raw brutality of Westeros and war. While at the point that he arrives in King's Landing he does not know of Lyanna's fate, he knows enough to have a good idea of what her last few months have been like ( based on what he knows). Ned's statement about waiting for Jaime to say something, may have been him asking for an answer to the unspoken question not " why did you do it?" but "What took you so long?"
14:12 I wouldn't exactly say ned is beloved in universe outside of his own region and a few close friends( which I would say applies to most high lords). If you mean by fans then that is another issue.
Muh Queen!!
I was always annoyed how the show whitewashed Jaime in many ways. Whereas in the books he is still not a good person at all and his so-called "redemption arc" isn't really there.
It also doesn’t help that after he slayed the king he sat back and let the rest of the royal family get murdered around him. If Jaimie wanted to claim being a good kingsgaurd he should have attempted to save the rest of the royal family.
I wonder if Jaime ever blames Cersei for his lot in life. If she wasnt in love with him he would be able to marry and be the heir to Castely Rock. He would not have been traumtised like this. This becomes far worse because Cersei never thanked him when she becomes queen. All Cersei's ambitions are made true by Jaime and he gets nothing in return. In a way he is her selfless knight.
When it comes down to it, if you look at his true nature, Jaime is not at all that dissimilar to the horses he trains for & rides to battle. Both in books and show, he's very much a horse person, as anyone used to animals can tell. It's easy to see why - he sees himself in them. For all his flaws & negative traits, he's selfless to a very unhealthy degree - an equine degree more than a human one.
👍🏻
No good deed goes unpunished.
Just so sad they ruined our boy at the end of the show with one sentence.
by killing a king
I’d wager he slew a king. Might be wrong.
The Targaryen were leech Lords, landlords of a foreign people. Refusing to interact or breed with them to keep their blood pressure from the comments. Jaehaerys the conciliator was the first true ruler of a people and not some landlord with a dragon.
.
Is this channel narrated by AI? Or do you have a female narrator that you pay?
LOL um, neither? I do all of the video stuff myself, I write the content, do the narration, and edit the videos solo.
@HillsAliveYT Oh well good job! You have a pretty voice, I just expected this page to be ran/written by some guy lol
Good video! :)
However, I can't justify Jaime's actions, not even the m*rder of Aerys. If anyone can break their oaths and commit m*rder whenever they feel like it, what's the purpose of oaths or contracts?
Why do we even have a justice system? If right and wrong are so clear-cut, why don't we just take matters into our own hands and punish m*rderers, p*dophiles, or the clinically insane ourselves? Or better yet, why not let random police officers decide who lives and di*s based on their personal beliefs
We and jaime are living in a society with rules and customs. Jaime clearly doesn't give a sh*t about anything.
He wasn't the one to decide aerys' fate. His job was it to protect him.
He also as a knight swore an oath to protect the innocent and defenseless. So which oath do you keep in that moment. Your oath to protect a Mad King or the thousands of innocent people that King was about to murder.
Random cops do kill people based on their own beliefs all the time and then get away with it… They even get revered. Random ppl donated millions of dollars to the cop who killed Trayvon Martin