#good to know I won't be getting any visits from that random ass blogger again

[melrosing]

Do you think its fair to say Jaime was complicit/responsible in Tywin's war crimes (Raynes of Castamere, sack of Kings Landing, Riverrun) because he kept staying by his side while he was alive, and didnt revolt against him? (ftr this question doesnt steam from any fandom fight, at least not recent, and not on tumblr if you're worried)

I think this is an interesting question, but reaching the answer always feels weirdly mathematical, leaving out the human element of 'what would you do if you were Jaime'. To me that's the more interesting question, and I think it's the one ASOIAF more often poses.

Like Jaime genuinely can't help who his dad is: the Reynes of Castamere happened before he was born and Tywin ascended to his seat as Lord of the Rock when Jaime was like... one, so he's basically been born into war crimes. It doesn't matter if he likes his dad and what he does (and plainly he doesn't) - this is just a grim reality that's out of his control. He doesn't like that his father employed the bloody mummers, or Gregor Clegane, or what happened to Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon... but what can he do, his dad's this godlike being, the most powerful man in the country (even if Robert nominally is), and that is the way Tywin has chosen to do things.

And if he were to revolt... well, I think Jaime is disillusioned by the alternatives: the KG were corrupt, Robert's corrupt, Aerys was Aerys - so whatever, he's a Lannister and so he's Tywin's team, it is what it is. That seems like a pretty real resignation to me - someone whose ideals were crushed at a young age just strips things back to their bare bones and decides he's on his family's side if he's on anyone's, so fuck the rest.

But obviously in ASOS Jaime's forced to confront exactly what Tywin's legacy meant for Westeros and what it has meant for his family, and that instills more conflict in him over his complicity. So following Tywin's death, again, there's the fact that he hates the allies Tywin's made them (the Freys, Sybell Westerling, etc) and admires the Starks' allies (the Tullys, the Blackwoods, Jeyne Westerling, etc) and wants peace and order and crops for the smallfolk... but the fact remains that if he wants to protect his family, he has to uphold Tywin's legacy - because that is the fragile foundation of their security.

If he doesn't preserve this, his children, sister and extended family have about five minutes left on this earth. He can say he wants peace and amends but men like Brynden Tully fundamentally do not believe him capable of it, so in AFFC we see Jaime regularly struggling with doing what he has to do in the way he'd prefer to do it whilst convincing everyone else it's Tywin's way of doing things, because that's the bluff that's holding all this together (until it isn't).

Because it fundamentally doesn't come down to whether Jaime is or even wants to be complicit or not, it comes down to what will happen if he's not. And now that he's pulled away from the Lannisters to run off into the woods on a zombie adventure with Brienne... what is going to happen to his children. What is going to happen to Cers. What, most imminently, is going to happen to Genna and Daven lol. The answer is nothing good, because they were only safe as long as Tywin's campaign of fear lived on, and it died with him. Unfortunately Jaime was born at the start of that campaign of fear and so born into complicity, with everything he loves as a stake in that. and IMO this is so much more interesting than just pointing at the various stages in the narrative where he could've gone 'fuck you dad it's your dream not mine'

#ask #jaime lannister #asoiaf #also thank you for letting me know this is not drama sourced lol #good to know I won't be getting any visits from that random ass blogger again