Motives be Damned


Imagine yourself getting defined for life by a single act. People don’t want to know your reasons and, if they do hear them, they dismiss them as a coverup.

Jamie Lannister faces exactly this situation in all of Game of Thrones. He is one of the bodyguards to King Aerys Targareyan. And yet, during a civil war, he assassinates the king whom he was sworn to protect. The new king pardons Jamie, retains him as his own bodyguard, and appoints Jamie’s father as the (right) Hand of the King. How well things ended for Jamie, right?

No wonder everyone assumes that it was Jamie’s intent from Day 1 to get close to the King and assassinate him:
“Why don the white cloak if you meant to betray all it stood for?”

But unlike the characters in the story, let us hear Jamie’s version:
-          King Aerys, the man he was sworn to protect, was er, the Mad King:
“Aerys was mad and cruel, no one has ever denied that.”
-          As it looked like Aerys would lose the civil war and the throne, the Mad King decided to burn the entire capital down. This was too much for Jamie to stomach. Why should innocents be killed on the whims of a madman?
“Jamie had slipped in through the king’s door… Jamie hauled the last dragonking bodily off the steps, squealing like a pig… A single slash across the throat was all it took to end it.”
-          Before Jamie could think what to do next, his father’s soldiers stormed into the court:
“(They) burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no time for Jamie to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or the blame.”
When Jamie saw the look in their eyes, he knew which it would be:
“It would be blame, he knew at once when he saw the way they looked at him… though perhaps that was fear.”
-          And then he did something, either out of the brashness of youth or just exhaustion:
“Then he climbed the Iron Throne and seated himself with his sword across his knees, to see who would come to claim the kingdom.”

As (bad) luck would have it, Ned Stark rode in to “claim the kingdom”. He was not the least bit amused to find Jamie on the throne. Others however took a kinder view, including the new king, who dismissed the regicide saying:
“Seven hells, someone had to kill Aerys. If Jamie hadn’t done it, it would have been left for you or me.”
And Jamie’s insolence in sitting on the throne?
“Jamie was all of seventeen, Ned. Scarce more than a boy.”

Boy or not, the assassination became the event that branded Jamie for life as “Kingslayer” and “Oathbreaker”. It’s all so complicated, just like real life.

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