Author: stevenattewell

How can you hold Jaime to a higher standard than Aemon the Dragon knight? Both Aemon and Aegon watched Aegon brutalize, humiliate, and rape Naerys within an inch of her life and did nothing to stop it. Egg did the same to Rhaella.

I don’t. I think the thrust of what GRRM is getting at with Jaime vis-a-vis Barristan Selmy and Ser Arthur Dayne, or Brienne vis-a-vis the Rainbow Knights, or Dunk vs. everyone else, is that being a True Knight is incredibly hard and most people fall short. 

So let’s take Aemon Dragonknight…the great paragon of knighthood, etc. But at the end of the day: Daeron I was murdered on his watch, Baelor I went mad while trying to rescue him, and he died saving Aegon IV of all people from being assassinated by the Toynes for the horrific and largely unjust death of Terrence Toyne. Even leaving aside the whole Naerys/Daeron II question, Aemon had feet of clay. 

Do you find it odd that it took Bittersteel almost 20 years to found the Golden Company, especially given that only one abortive Blackfyre Rebellion happened in that period? How did he keep all the exiles together and motivated for almost two decades during which they didn’t seem to be doing much to return to Westeros?

Interesting that you bring this up. I’m going to be discussing this with @historyofwesteros in just a moment. 

RE: Jaime. Shouldn’t we just asume that Kingsguard vows take precedence over the knighthood ones, if they ever come into conflict?

Well, you know what they say about assuming things…

But seriously, unless otherwise stated, it would be much more likely that the earlier binds the former, just as legal precedent itself means that older decisions are binding on future decisions. In this case, my contention is that, having sworn the oath of knighthood, Jaime is not in fact completely free to swear to “Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his” in any situation where obeying the king or doing his bidding would cause him to violate the first oath.

To take an example that’s not too farfetched given events in ASOIAF: given that the oath of knighthood requires knights to “protect all women” and to “defend the young and innocent” should a kingsguard obey Joffrey’s command to beat Sansa? I would argue that Sansa’s ACOK chapters suggest strongly that any knight who obeys such a command is not a true knight, whether we’re talking about brutes like Boros Blount or Meryn Trant or the squeamish like Arys Oakheart. 

Can you explain the problems you’ve found in the Dresden FIles’ world-building?

I said that I thought the world-building was better in Rivers of London, not that I had found particular problems.

One of the major problems with a lot of urban fantasy is how one reconciles the fantastic with the urban – how is it that magic exists but we’re still in a recognizably “realistic” urban environment environment? Is there a “masquerade” and how is it maintained? Why hasn’t magic reshaped human society and institutions, if it’s that powerful? And so on. 

(To give an example, in the latest Harry Potter movie, I had a big problem with the idea that wizards would ever be afraid of no-majs and thus hide themselves from the world, when there’s really nothing that humans could do to threaten them.)

So one of the things I like about the Rivers of London series is that Ben Aaronovitch came up with some really clever solutions to these problems. Magic hasn’t hugely reshaped human institutions because magic-users are rare, because the reliability of magic is a fairly recent phenomenon (thanks to good old Sir Isaac Newton), because the overall level of magic in the world ebbs and flows with time, because magic isn’t compatible with a lot of technology, which makes integrating it with modern society difficult, and because at the end of the day, a wizard who isn’t prepared can be taken out with conventional methods the same as any other human so they’re not all-powerful. 

Why is it rare? Because A. it takes a rather specific mindset to recognize the signs of magic in the first place (which helps with the masquerade), B. you have to be taught by a wizard, you can’t pick it up on your own (which limits the population of possible wizards), C. if you over-use magic or try to draw too much power or have a magical accident, you suffer what appears to be a stroke, brain hemorrhage, aneurysm, or heart attack (which both makes magic less enticing for new entrants, limits the power level of wizards, and explains why we haven’t noticed magic gone wrong – it just shows up as natural causes), and D. geopolitical events like the second World War led to the deaths of entire magical communities and traditions. 

How does the masquerade work? There are covert and semi-covert human institutions, largely based in the police or intelligence agencies, that work to cover up what’s going on. An outbreak of vampirism in a suburban household in London? Hit the sleeping vampires with white phosphorous grenades, have the fire marshals declare it to be a tragic electrical fire, and everything gets swept under the rug. And so on. 

On that last Jaime point, perhaps you’re right under our own moral apparatus but I don’t believe even Eddard ever held that against Jaime, certainly less then the oathbreaking. Plus would it have made a difference other then throwing Jaime’s own life away alongside Lord Rickard and Brandon? All I’m asking is what effective resistance we should reasonably expect from Jaime given his position? Or Tyrion who noted that being born a Lannister tied him to their fate/destruction at the time?

Not just under our own apparatus – it’s also the case under the ideals of knighthood. A true knight is supposed to uphold their vows at all costs and no matter the consequences – which points to GRRM’s romantic/existential leanings. And the oath of knighthood explicitly states that:

“In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.”

The Mother’s clause points to the fact that  Rickard and Brandon were innocent (and helpless, given their chains) until proven guilty; the Father’s clause reminds us that the laws of men and the laws of the old gods and the new state unequivocally that they had the right to a trial and killing them without one is murder; the Warrior’s clause demands that Jaime fight for the right no matter the odds. 

And yes, it’s not easy. As Jaime points out, there were dozens of knights in that room, many of them of great reputation, who did nothing, who put their oath of obedience above their oath of knighthood. But true kngihts are rare precisely because it is so difficult to put your ideals ahead of all practical considerations. Remember Dunk at the Tourney of Ashford and how rare it is to find a knight who remembers his vows; remember Brienne’s desperate fight against the Bloody Mummers or Jaime’s suicidal leap into the bear pit. 

Since Sylvana Sand was supposed to have inspired Gaemon Palehair’s edicts, do you think that in Dorne wounded veterans are supported by their Lords ? Would such a practice have been viable & implementable in the medieval times ? Any precedents for such moves in our world?

That seems to be the case, according to the WOIAF:

“An example of the differing Dornish laws and attitudes due to the influence of the Rhoynar may be found, curiously, in the last days of the Dance of the Dragons. From Archmaester Gyldayn’s history concerning Gaemon Palehair’s brief reign.”

So it probably is the case that Dornish veterans have to be supported by their lords, or that “the poor be given bread and beer in times of famine,” since we definitely know that in Dorne it’s definitely the case that “girls [are] equal with boys in matter of inheritance.”

Now, specifically on the point about veterans and real-world medieval practice…it’s hard to say, and it depends on how systemic a practice we’re talking about, and how many veterans survive their wounds vis-a-vis the capacity of the state. It’s certainly true that the medieval Catholic Church ran huge networks of hospitals that were as much about providing people with food and shelter as any form of medical care. And sometimes, you did have monarchs who would go out of their way to care for their veterans – after the failure of the Spanish Armada, for example, Phillip II provided medical care to the 10,000 survivors in attempt to expiate God’s wrath. On the other hand, Elizabeth’s government coldly refused to care for the sailors who had helped to save England purely for financial reasons. 

Does Tyrion fall under the same purview for propping up the Lannister regime prior to the Purple wedding? I’m just genuinely curious if we’re working from the same standard here because I’m baffled as to what we could/should expect from someone in Jaimie’s position (who did do the right thing once upon a time and was vilified for it) while accounting for the fact that he was born a Lannister and ask what viable political alternative exits for him to resist for at this point?

I certainly think he does. 

Indeed, that’s the central tension of Tyrion’s arc in ACOK – we’re rooting for him to succeed against Cersei and Varys and Pycelle and Littlefinger, we cheer when he leads the sally from the Mud Gate to the cheers of “Halfman!” but at the end of the day, Tyrion’s success means that Joffrey stays on the Iron Throne.

And this is a point that GRRM hammers home again and again. Tyrion starts ACOK by proclaiming that he’s going to “do justice,” and he’s absolutely gobsmacked to find out that the smallfolk of King’s Landing hate him. And as much as he likes to blame everything on Joffrey and feel aggrieved, Tyrion’s his Hand of the King and doesn’t do a damn thing when Joffrey starts giving orders to murder innocent civilians or shooting starving people with crossbows. 

I would also argue, btw, that a big chunk of Tyrion’s ASOS arc is his realization of his complicity in this regime and his realization of what the regime is like when you’re no longer the man on top…

Now, it’s an open question whether Tyrion is going to reawaken to humanity as @poorquentyn explores in his ADWD essays, but I personally hope that part of that process is Tyrion realizing that it’s not enough to try to “soften the blow” but that one has to defect from the system of oppression and join Dany’s revolution in order to actually “do justice.”

As for Jaime, I think I’ve made my opinion clear on that point: Jaime’s hated because he stupidly refuses to tell anyone what he did and why. But in my opinion, Jaime should be condemned for not stopping the Mad King the moment Aerys gave the command to burn people alive without trial.

While I agree that Jaime has a whole lot more blame than much of the fandom gives him, isn’t it a bit unfair to lump him in with his father and sister on some of the regards? For example, when you criticized him for bloodlessly lifting the Riverrun siege because his family was the one who did the Red Wedding in the first place, what could Jaime do? He didn’t order the Riverlands to be taken from the Tullys, or involved in the Red Wedding at all. He did the best he could in a bad situation.

To quote Terry Pratchett:

poorquentyn:

Let’s talk about “the best he could in a bad situation,” because I think this is the source of a lot of the disagreement about Jaime. I am a loud and proud believer in the virtues of incrementalist politics and making clear-eyed use of corrupt institutions and people to further noble ends. But even I acknowledge that there’s a tipping point where it stops being worth it, where you’re no longer making the best of a bad situation so much as normalizing an unacceptable one. 

That is what I consider the regime that Jaime helped Cersei put in place: an unacceptable situation. I believe that it demands resistance. I believe it to be such a destabilizing force, from the coup itself to Joffrey’s reign to the Mountain’s raids to Tywin’s labor camp at Harrenhal to the Red Wedding, that trying to make it better just misses the point. It needs to be removed; it is the problem. 

My issue with casting what Jaime’s doing as “bloodlessly lifting the Riverrun siege” is that it completely ignores this context. Did Jaime, personally, do all the things that make the Lannister regime unacceptable? No. But Jaime is not just an individual. He is a political and military actor, part of a larger machine. I wouldn’t consider a lawyer for the mob to be as reprehensible as the boss…but the former is still working for the mob. And like a mob lawyer, Jaime’s job in AFFC is to make the Red Wedding look nice and respectable, pretend everything’s business as usual. But it’s not, as the Tully men inform him in no uncertain terms. At some point, there is no legitimate way to represent and employ illegitimate power. It leads not to social stability but breakdown–why should anyone trust the Lannisters and Freys to observe norms, ever again? 

Everyone, of course, has their own definition of when amelioration stops being a social good and outright resistance is justified. But for me, the Lannister regime crossed that line long ago. 

“History was full of the bones of good men who’d followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.“