A Feast For Crows - Chapter 33: Jaime V

[@Last_Seen_Ahorse]

God, but I love this chapter, and I *love* Genna Lannister. It would have been so easy for George to make all the Lannister clan as cruel and dour as Tywin or as stoic as Kevan, but cousin Daven and Lady Genna are very deliberately placed in this chapter to further break down the image of House Lannister the first three novels have built up in our heads. Sure, plenty of us have liked Tyrion for ages, but he's a black sheep, portrayed most often as the anti-Lannister (we'll come back to that). Even Jaime's come to take on a sort of "not like other Lannisters" vibe of late, coming about similarly to Tyrion's through repeated conflict with the most powerful members of the house, first his lord father and now his sister. But Lady Genna's appearance especially serves to reframe our conception of what a Lannister is, something that's more up-in-the-air than we may yet have realized in the wake of Tywin's death. She's funny, affectionate, obviously intelligent, all this and more -- but most importantly, she's a Lannister through and through. She's got Tyrion and the twins' biting sarcasm, Tywin's bluntness, and of course the overwhelming sense of familial pride. Lady Genna is a living example that one can have these traditionally Lannister-y traits in spades and still be a decent human being. Despite Tyrion's (our most internally conflicted lion by a mile) constant wallowing in self-pity and seeming resignation to letting himself be the same heartless monster his father was, a Lannister doesn't have to be a prick. The awful, toxic environment in which the three siblings were raised doesn't condemn them to being awful, toxic people; there's a good and moral and upright House Lannister on the horizon in some potential world, and a complete rebellion against one's nature (which in George's stories tend to fail completely, as a rule) isn't what's needed to achieve it. This theme of course comes up at a perfect time in Jaime's narrative, too. Here we see Jaime at his moral high point, making a pretty consistent effort to become Goldenhand the Just (a more ideal, moral reprise of the 'gold' motif that so haunts his family, associated now with purity [his sword hand, once used to carry out cruel and base impulses, replaced with pure gold to match his pure Kingsguard white {see his mostly-humorous conversation on this topic with cousin Daven here}] instead of greed) instead of the Kingslayer. He's still seen by most people (and often himself), though, as the incarnation of the worst of his family's traits: the arrogant, amoral, lecherous Kingslayer. His conversation with Genna is so poignant because it brings into sharper focus than ever the almost laughable fact that Jaime -- the guy who is introduced to us fucking his sister and defenestrating a first grader -- is the most redeemable Lannister of the main three. Right after she waxes lyrical awhile about Tywin's prideful smile, she tells Jaime that he smiles like Gerion. That he fought like brave, rebellious Tygett and has Kevan's sense of duty. We've known for some time that Tyrion is Tywin's son. He says so himself after putting a quarrel in the man's guts. We've had 35 chapters in Tyrion's head to know exactly who and what he is. But Jaime is a work in progress, the depths of his goodness heretofore mostly unplumbed. The close of this book's narrative will leave him at a high point in that regard, but the glimpse into his future that A Dance With Dragons grants tells us this can't last for long. In ASoIaF, as in life, change is not a linear process, especially when you've committed the sins Jaime Lannister has. We know he has the potential to be good when that goodness isn't being tested, and this chapter (and the forthcoming get-out-of-jail-free card he gets from again having to choose between two conflicting oaths) affirms it; when his back is against the wall and the rope is about his neck, it seems as likely as not that he'll retreat to his former self. Which would be a very interesting moment to anticipate if the book was ever coming out

[@josephbulkin9222]

The legend returns. Youre already have a better consistency than Martin.

[@pissedoffnation]

The southern US accent on daven lannister really is killing me

[@josephbulkin9222]

Oh, and the chapter's cool too. I needed this after Hotd sucked so bad. I have never been more of a book purist than now, and Condal and his troupe has vindicated me.

[@BillyHollowayy]

FUCK YES

[@stever4128]

👌

[@justinrogers1807]

Let's go 1st

[@josephbulkin9222]

Smallwood at 21:42, not Smallford. Martin had a typo on his DOS, it seems.