Jaime Lannister as the Ill-Made Knight

So, I wanted to take a minute to talk about Jaime Lannister. I know a lot of people have said this, but I think Jaime Lannister is one of the most interesting and complex characters in the series. I think he's especially interesting given the cultural precedents that surround him as a character.

I'm taking a comparative literature class right now and we've been talking about the knightly ideals of Nordic cultures in literature and their change over time, which I think is quite interesting. It's got me thinking about the representation of knighthood in A Song of Ice and Fire, which seems to share the sort of knightly ideal exhibited in early, Christian Europe. However, it doesn't really seem to live up to that ideal (not to say that Europeans actually lived up to that ideal, although Britain did choose to make Paul McCartney a knight, so they're improving). I mean, within the first five chapters of the first book, Jaime Lannister has already pushed a small boy out of a window because he saw him committing incest with his sister. That is not the knightly ideal.

Hm.

Well, as I said, this really doesn't measure up to traditional knightly ideals and, really, there's no real way to justify that. But I've been thinking about this, and, I'm going to go all English-major on you and make an argument. My argument is that the portrayal of Jaime's character is not meant to conform with these medieval notions of chivalry, rather, we are supposed to view him as part of the modern tradition of the flawed knight, like Don Quixote. Actually, a better approximate would probably be found in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, specifically, The Ill-Made Knight. The idea being that, the knight is actually a deeply flawed human being.

Like White's Lancelot, Jaime is just attempting to do the best thing possible in his situation. One of the biggest accusations against Jaime is that he killed the king. And he's taken a lot of heat for that, but think about this. This was the Mad-King, the king who was responsible for the deaths of thousands and would have killed thousands more. By killing the king, he ended the war and, if anyone else had done it, no one would have cared. So then, what's the problem? Yes, it was against his vow, but it worked out pretty well for everyone.

Of course, the other thing that most people have a problem with is his pushing Bran out the window. Now, that was a bad thing; I'm not arguing that. But, from his perspective, what else could he do? It's the same thing with Lancelot, who has to kill his fellow knights to save Guinevere. Now, he shouldn't have gotten with Guinevere in the first place, but, given the situation, what else could he do? It's sort of a rock and a hard place situation. Again, I'm not saying this is defensible, but, I think Jaime says it well when he says "the things I do for love". That is an excellent way to summarize the whole situation. This is discussed in an interview by the Game of Thrones cast (at around 21:16 in the video). But seriously, he is one of the few men in the entire show, perhaps the entire series, who remains faithful to one woman so, props to him for that. And, you know, it really seems that they're in love - all weirdness aside.

Actually, it's still pretty weird (but hey, the Targaryens do it). Anyway, my point is that people need to stop hating on Jaime because, he's doing the best that he can. If we view him through the lens of the modern interpretation of the knight, we see that the knight is not intended to be a perfect character. This theme is even present in the great epic of Christian knighthood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; even Gawain has his flaws, but this doesn't preclude him from being a sympathetic character. Strangely enough, I think Jaime Lannister is one of my favorite characters.

And that's only partly due to his glorious hair (Jon Snow would still do a better shampoo ad).

Valar dohaeris