Game of Thrones Bookclub: It’s not like the songs
The single most pivotal event in these chapters is Jamie Lannister throwing Bran off a tower ledge. This is the event that changes the course of the lives of basically every character we’ve met so far so it deserves some examination.
We know that Jamie Lannister is an impulsive monster just through this event. We also know that he didn’t exactly inherit the cunning required of a master of the game of thrones. Or did he? What exactly is Bran or Cersei or Jamie supposed to do in this situation? For Jamie and Cersei at least, the consequences of being caught in the midst of a sexual episode must have crossed their mind. If they are caught by someone important —or someone even marginally important like a young child of a great House— the possibility that that person or someone much smarter and more aware than that person connecting the dots and realizing that the queen of the Seven Kingdoms is hooking up with her brother instead of the king is a big deal.
It’s such a big deal that I think the fact Jamie and Cersei decide to go off together and have sex in a tower in a castle they aren’t terribly familiar and then throw someone off a tower who catches them reveals that they are not, in fact, in love. Despite what Jamie says just before he throws Bran down however many stories (“The things I do for love”), he and Cersei are more in the throws of a highly lustful affair than a profound relationship. They are taking a big personal and political risk by having sex in this abandoned tower and then getting rid of Bran in a way that leaves the remote possibility that someone might consider there being a correlation between Bran’s sudden fall and a visit by the Lannisters. It’s a remote possibility but a possibility nonetheless.
Doing both those things is not something that a couple in a deeply loving relationship do, it’s something that a couple who have a highly lustful and impulsive relationship do. So the takeaway from this event as it pertains to Jamie and Cersei (for me) is that they aren’t actually that smart or that deeply connected through a romantic bond. They just share an overriding physical attraction for each other. It’s an imperfect relationship for lovers with royal blood and it’s an imperfect relationship for lovers in general. That’s one of the big takeaways I got from these chapters: many things in this world are imperfect be they reality compared to the stories and the songs the main characters grew up with or actual relationships compared to what those relationships appear to be. I got that with Dany too.
I’m not sure what the reader is supposed to take away from the end of this last point of view chapter with Khal Drogo but I definitely didn’t get the sense that it was that Dany had suddenly fallen in love. Instead my takeaway is that Dany had been so secluded and controlled by her life that her desperation for feeling anything positive for anyone (even a stranger like Drogo) finally came out during her wedding night. That’s why we see her shed her timidness and have sex with Drogo despite initially extreme fear and hesitation. It has basically nothing to do with love and more to do with lust and desperation to feel something good in a world filled with pain and suffering.
What’d you think dear readers? What did you like or not like from these chapters? What stuck out to you?
Alright so lets keep on going at this pace if that’s okay. Next eight chapters for next week.
UPDATE 6/3/2011: Guys, comments are, as I’m learning to expect, really good but please please please keep the spoilers to a minimum. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves in this bookclub. Only what we’ve read is fair game.
Cersei’s being unfaithful to Robert is treason — both she and Jaime could be executed for it. And the obvious conclusion about the children, who look like pure Lannisters rather than Baratheons, would lead at least to their being disinherited, perhaps something worse. Jaime has so much to lose that he has little choice but to do something drastic.Report
Right, I agree. Jamie did have to do something drastic (which is what happened) but he didn’t do something smart, he left a small opportunity for someone to figure what was actually happening.Report
***Spoiler Alert***
In later books we find out that Jaime is a lot more committed to the relationship than Cersei, who cheats on him with Lancel, the Kettelblacks and God knows who else and further discards him the moment he loses his sword hand.Report
*******SPOILERS*******
I really want her to have actually done Moon Boy. Also the Lancel thing was very much a replacement for Jamie, although definitely not the others. Plus she was in love with Rhaegar (though who wasn’t) and Robert (before the wedding)Report
The fact that Cersei and Jaime are twins does, I think, further reduce their affair. It’s not merely more lustful than romantic; it’s also (arguably) more narcissistic than lustful.Report
Right. Their appearance is very similar to each other as well as their personalities (as far as we can tell right now). It’s pretty clear that this isn’t love, it’s lust.Report
Right, but my point is that it’s (arguably, as I said) not lust for each other.Report
I took that to mean lust is involved (which I think is true) but narcissism is the overriding aphrodisiac which I would agree with.
But I can’t get on board with the idea that it’s solely narcissism. If it was they’d just be a pair of Lannisters who are unusually supportive and protective of each other.Report
**Spoilers**
I guess I’d contest the idea that without Bran falling, the books don’t happen.
Robert was going to name Ned as the hand in any case, and Ned was already suspicious about Jon Arryn’s death. That investigation led to his discovery that “Robert’s” children were actually Jamie’s, and that knowledge alone, independent of anything else, would have led him to contest Joff’s right to succeed.
Also, I don’t see any inherent connection between Bran’s fall and Robert’s decision to go hunting. He was probably going to do that anyway. Which meant he was probably going to get killed, which is the incident which triggers the crisis.
Also, Bran’s fall does not seem to have any impact on Robert’s decision to send assassins after Daenerys, which is the only event on Westeros to have affected her.
Granted, if Bran doesn’t see Jamie and Cersei, Catelyn doesn’t arrest Tyrion, sparking the Lannisters’ invasion of the East. But it seems to me that that would merely have delayed the war, not prevented it. Ned would still have contested Joff’s parentage, Cersei would still have executed him, and banners would still have been called. It just would have taken a few extra months.
So I really don’t think that Bran’s fall is quite the essential event that you make it out to be.Report
Cersei doesn’t execute Ned. She is willing to allow him to take the Black, but Joffrey decides to kill him.
Other than that, I think this is mostly right, although I’m not sure it’s obvious that Ned would have failed so spectacularly without the chain of events that goes Bran’s fall > Tyrion’s capture > Jaime’s wrath > Ned’s injury/opium consumption.Report
Perhaps, but without Tyrions arrest which was entirely caused by Bran’s fall the Lannisters wouldn’t have been as hostile and prepared for war/wheeling and dealing as they were which means Ned might have actually pulled off his little coup attempt in King’s Landing.
Maybe… though one thing that the show really drove home to me was just how stupid Ned was in his dogged pursuit of the good. He was honorable and lawful up to a point but when everything came to a head at Robert’s deathbed Ned decided to commit treason in order to allow his best friend to die without burden. Shortly after that Ned would pay for that mistake with his life.Report
Two things: First, lets keep the spoilers to a minimum please! Second, fair enough but Bran’s fall does direct how many things play out. I didn’t mean to say that things wouldn’t have happened the way they did at all, just that they would have happened differently.Report
I’ve been working my way through the (audio)book on one hand, and watching the show on the other. It’s worked out well because I will catch things on the show that I glossed over. The show was particularly helpful in bringing the Lannisters into focus, specifically Jaime and Cercei.
From the books, I had imagined them stronger and more formidable in appearance. The book did a good job of making them look like the products of a family tree with perhaps a few too many loops in them. Attractive, yet with a little gauntness about them. It made the hole in their souls more visible. And it made more apparent Ryan B’s part about narcissism.Report
What would people say to spoiler threads off site? We could start a doppleganger site for any spoiler discussion…Report
Might be a good idea.Report