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The extent to which Jaime embarked on a genuine redemption arc is debatable, and his actions with Brienne doesn't mean there should be a forgive and forget attitude to his attempted murder of Bran.
What does his attempted murder of Bran have to do with whether he would rape Cersei? This "well if person X can commit crime A, then they will also commit crime B, because they're a Bad Person, and Bad People do Bad Things" logic is baffling. (Try going up to, say, some mafia guy and telling him: "Hey, since you murder people, I'm sure you also abuse children, don't you?", see how that goes.) Jamie was someone who would do all sorts of things to protect the people he loves, including murder, even of a complete innocence - but he has never been a rapist and he's completely devoted to those he loves, and he's loved Cersei all his life. The idea that he would rape her to "punish" her or because he thinks she's denying him "what's his" is utter rubbish which is OOC, and, if treated as something that doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things and will have zero consequence for his or Cersei's arcs, deeply misogynistic.
That's under the assumption that the showrunners ever actually decided that they were going to make him rape Cersei; from Graves' and NCW's interviews, it looks like they weren't even aware that they were shooting a rape scene, and that it was all a monumental screw-up rather than a result of a plan. Which is, in some ways, even more troubling. That level of cluelessness is quite amazing. It certainly looks like the show will treat it as if it never happened.
What does his attempted murder of Bran have to do with whether he would rape Cersei? This "well if person X can commit crime A, then they will also commit crime B, because they're a Bad Person, and Bad People do Bad Things" logic is baffling. (Try going up to, say, some mafia guy and telling him: "Hey, since you murder people, I'm sure you also abuse children, don't you?", see how that goes.)
You're misunderstanding what I was saying. I didn't say one form of bad behavior leads to the other, that if someone will commit one form of crime they are disposed to commit every form of crime. I said the episode included a theme of harsh lessons, and one of those was for the audience in that people who are deeply flawed and screwed up will sometimes do things that are heinous, that things aren't as simple as an uninterrupted redemption arc where characters behave in a predictable fashion.
Jamie was someone who would do all sorts of things to protect the people he loves, including murder, even of a complete innocence - but he has never been a rapist and he's completely devoted to those he loves, and he's loved Cersei all his life.
Jaime didn't push Bran out the window because he was beard stroking evil. Had Bran reported what he saw Jaime, Cersei, Joffrey, Tommen, and Marcella would've been all put to death.
^^^
Sure, and I'm not saying he's beard-stroking evil. He's capable of nobility and he's capable of committing terrible acts. He had a reason to try to kill Bran, but attempted murder to cover up an incestuous sexual relationship is still an evil act.
^^^
Some people want to forgive and forget for what happened to Bran and move onto a straightforward hero worship of Jaime. It's quite common in ASOIAF fandom.
The way I see Jaime is that his relationship with Cirsei is so screwed up that it can drive him to heinous acts. I think there's part of him that would have liked to be a noble knight all along, but he's influenced by intensity of feeling - for the better and for the worse - for particular individuals, and that isn't something that can necessarily be shaken off with no reversions.
The extent to which Jaime embarked on a genuine redemption arc is debatable, and his actions with Brienne doesn't mean there should be a forgive and forget attitude to his attempted murder of Bran.
What does his attempted murder of Bran have to do with whether he would rape Cersei? This "well if person X can commit crime A, then they will also commit crime B, because they're a Bad Person, and Bad People do Bad Things" logic is baffling. (Try going up to, say, some mafia guy and telling him: "Hey, since you murder people, I'm sure you also abuse children, don't you?", see how that goes.) Jamie was someone who would do all sorts of things to protect the people he loves, including murder, even of a complete innocence - but he has never been a rapist and he's completely devoted to those he loves, and he's loved Cersei all his life. The idea that he would rape her to "punish" her or because he thinks she's denying him "what's his" is utter rubbish which is OOC, and, if treated as something that doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things and will have zero consequence for his or Cersei's arcs, deeply misogynistic.
That's under the assumption that the showrunners ever actually decided that they were going to make him rape Cersei; from Graves' and NCW's interviews, it looks like they weren't even aware that they were shooting a rape scene, and that it was all a monumental screw-up rather than a result of a plan. Which is, in some ways, even more troubling. That level of cluelessness is quite amazing. It certainly looks like the show will treat it as if it never happened.
^^^
Sure, and I'm not saying he's beard-stroking evil. He's capable of nobility and he's capable of committing terrible acts. He had a reason to try to kill Bran, but attempted murder to cover up an incestuous sexual relationship is still an evil act.
To save his life, the life of the woman he loves and their children.
One of the themes of the story is that good and evil only exist in fairy tales. In reality everyone is a shade of grey, tinted darker or lighter by the lens we see them through.
Jaime has this serious problem in the books of blaming everyone but himself for things. He honestly blamed Bran as deserving what happened to him because he was "spying", instead of him just being a kid who liked climbing and was curious as to noises in an empty tower.
I'm sorry, but that's just scummy.
And it is correct that the books seem to forget about what he did to Bran or overly justify it by saying "It was to save his family."
Sorry, but the only reason he and Cersei had to resort to child murder was due to their own irresponsibility in the first place. They can't go on doing stuff they shouldn't be doing and then blame someone else for everything when they get caught. It's their own damn faults for doing that stuff to begin with!
The show has made some changes, mainly because they think that some characters (who they know will be around for the end) have to be seen as more than just protagonists, they have to be seen as Heroic as well. Tyrion and Dany (though to be fair Dany gets treated with kids' gloves in the books too) are the main offenders.
I have to wonder how they'll write Tyrion's moments in ADWD, where he's at his least sympathetic.
This is why the perspectives of the books make it so interesting. Reading about Jaime or any other character from their perspective makes them inherently more sympathetic, no matter what they do. I think Cersei is the only PoV who avoids that trap.
Yes, Jaime's actions are morally reprehensible. Yes, people can get a little too forgiving of him. However, we haven't yet seen Tyrion or Jon or Arya or any of the other favorites placed in a position where they might have to make such a call about an innocent. I think Dany has the best shot at ending up a truly villainous figure in the end. Her lust for "Justice" and the throne may well drive her to some truly monstrous acts by the end of the series. Will we be able to justify it as readers and viewers? What if she only gives the orders? Really, that is more interesting to me than the "anyone can die" reputation that everyone ascribes its popularity to.
Jaime has this serious problem in the books of blaming everyone but himself for things. He honestly blamed Bran as deserving what happened to him because he was "spying", instead of him just being a kid who liked climbing and was curious as to noises in an empty tower.
Yeah, he does try to justify it to himself, and says to himself at one point that Bran was "spying" on them. But in a later chapter he says to Cersei "I'm not ashamed of loving you, only of the things I've done to hide it. That boy at Winterfell..."
.
This is the perspectives of the books make it so interesting. Reading about Jaime or any other character from their perspective makes them inherently more sympathetic, no matter what they do. I think Cersei is the only PoV who avoids that trap.
I'm not sure that's the case. I found Theon incredibly unlikable and annoying in his POV chapters in A Clash of Kings (though it all changes, of course, when you get to his POVs in A Dance with Dragons, but by then he is very different). I thought that the TV show made him more sympathetic in season 2. I felt more or less the same about Cersei before and after reading her POVs - there are some things in them that made me sorry for her and others that made me hate her even more, but she always had both of these as a non-POV character, too. The only difference is that she becomes much (unintentionally) funnier.
Victarion also doesn't get sympathetic because he has a POV (just sort of funny because of his stupidity - some of his chapters are black comedy material, similar to Cersei's), same with some of the prologue POVs like Chett and Varamyr who are just shown to be awful people.
In your opinion. The context of that scene is completely different - they are still in an ongoing relationship, she is happy to see him and hadn't rejected him, they haven't seen each other in a long time and both want to have sex, he doesn't tell her she's hateful and isn't angry at her and it doesn't look like he wants to punish her or whatever, she objects to the place they are because she's afraid of being caught but she changes her mind and enthusiastically consents before there's any penetration, which is pretty different from her still saying "it's not right" while he's pumping. Is this a perfect textbook "here is how you should initiate sex with your partner" scene to show at marriage counselling meetings - no, but it's very, very different from the scene in the show. If you want to think he wouldn't have stopped if she had continued to say no, fine, but that's not a fact, just your opinion. In any case, book!Jaime did not want to hurt Cersei and some hatesex/punishment-rape is OOC for him, and some of the most important character moments for him involve protecting or trying to protect women from rape - he's still haunted by his inability to protect Mad King's wife queen Rhaella from rape by her husband/brother (as a young Kingsguard knight, he was told by the Lord Commander that they were not supposed to protect the queen from the king), he hated Robert for abusing Cersei, and the crucial moment in his arc is saving Brienne from rape... and oh look, that was also the crucial moment in his show arc! And then there's
Jaime punishing Pia's rapist by beheading, and telling his squire to sleep with her only if she wants him and to treat her well as if she were his wife.
In the show, will we now be invited to think of him as a hypocrite when he does those things?
It's also completely out of character for Cersei to just ignore being raped as if nothing happened - she hated Robert for sexually abusing her when he would came into her bed drunk and even though there's little she could do since he was her husband and king and therefore legally had the right to rape her, since Westeros does not recognize marital rape, she found ways to at least make sure that he didn't get to penetrate her and she chose not to have his children. She's still thinking about Robert abusing her in her POV chapters in the fourth book, it's something that doesn't just go away.
...the audience was on the receiving end of that, too, being shown that the characters they were willing to forgive for the murder of a child and the attempted murder of a child respectively are still, after all, fucked up people capable of heinous acts.
Yeah, seriously. Jaime and Cersei are unforgivably self-centered and monstrous, so who gives a damn what happens to either of them - other than, hopefully, more grief?
Oh, so you already know that Westeros takes place entirely within a nature preserve in modern day Pennsylvania and the White Walkers were just the leaders dressing up to keep the people in line through fear? Twist!
