So, Jaime is riding back to King’s Landing to see Cersei? Will he save her, kill her or die trying? The show has famously far outstripped the source novels in A Song Of Ice And Fire, but Martin still has plenty to say about two of the most popular and hated characters – and their fate. Everything in Game of Thrones is always foreshadowed and the Lannister twins sealed their own deaths at the very start when Bran went flying out of that window. Martin’s revelations about that will change everything you think about the terrible two and how their story will end.
Much of the criticism levelled at the show recently stems from a loss of Martin’s extraordinary ability to tap into human flaws and failings. The show is getting a little predictable and lacking subtlety and insight.
Most fans think Jaime is deeply flawed and unable to escape the terrible influence of his sister. It is all too easy to attribute his worst behaviour to his blind love for her. Most fans think Cersei is an incredible character to watch in action but utterly irredeemable. Isn’t she simply what her situation has made her?
The intended murder of Bran as a child is unforgivable and utterly evil – or is it?
Martin asks what would you do in the same situation and suddenly everything you think is ripped apart and all certainties about what will happen to Jaime and Cersei go (literally) out the window. Their inevitable deaths take on a totally different dimension.
Martin told Rolling Stone: “Remember, Jaime isn’t just trying to kill Bran because he’s an annoying little kid. Bran has seen something that is basically a death sentence for Jaime, for Cersei, and their children – their three actual children.
“So I’ve asked people who do have children, ‘Well, what would you do in Jaime’s situation?’ They say, ‘Well, I’m not a bad guy – I wouldn’t kill.’ Are you sure? Never? If Bran tells King Robert, he’s going to kill you and your sister-lover, and your three children…
“One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible?
“How many good acts make up for a bad act? If you’re a Nazi war criminal and then spend the next 40 years doing good deeds and feeding the hungry, does that make up for being a concentration-camp guard?”
Many fans think Jaime is going home to kill Cersei. But this won’t redeem Jaime, since everything he has done has been from a (twisted) sense of love and honour. Cersei, of course, has never sought redemption.
Martin argues: “I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then?”
However, redemption and forgiveness for either twin seems unlikely – from others and from themselves.
It is more likely Jaime has recognised that he will never find peace with everything he has done in his life. If Cersei is defeated and sentenced to death or prison, it seems likely Jaime will kill his sister and himself to end both their suffering and remove them from a world that could never accept them or give them peace.
The most poetic (and typically Game of Thrones) way would be for them both to fall from a high window, echoing Bran and then Tommen.
ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE ARTICLE HERE