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.” - ...