“They took my sword hand. Was that all I was, a sword hand?”
Synopsis: Jaime tries to die, but decides to live instead.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
Sure, I’d be happy to. In terms of characters, we have:
Brienne is the Knight of the Woeful Countenance. Quite literally, given what Biter does to her face. In a broader sense, she’s a knight who isn’t a knight, yet is the only one who holds to the true ideals of knighhood in a world of cynics.
Pod is Sancho Panza. The hapless yet infinitely loyal squire who follows his knight to the end, even when that takes him into hideous danger.
In terms of plot arcs, Brienne spends the whole of AFFC engaged in an impossible quest: Jaime has given her his sword and sent her forth to “make good our stupid vows to your precious dead Lady Catelyn“ – but Brienne finds herself fruitlessly chasing rumors. She tries to track down Dontos Hollard, but finds Shagwell, and she never learns that Dontos Hollard is dead and that Sansa is in the Vale. She tries to track down Sandor in the hopes of finding Arya, but she doesn’t recognize Sandor when she comes across him, and ends up finding Rorge instead, who’s been pretending to be the Hound. And even if she had found the Hound, he doesn’t have Arya anymore.
But despite her task being practically impossible, despite having every rational reason to give it up, Brienne refuses to compromise her ideals. No matter that Shagwell ambushes her three on one, no matter than Rorge shows up at the inn with “Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice,” she keeps fighting.
No, I don’t think that’s it. In chivalry, devotion to your liege lord is a sign of virtue; in chivalric romance, devotion to your love is likewise. Brienne’s case is rather efficient in that the two are one.
I think GRRM made Brienne devoted to Renly was to set up the idea that Brienne’s purpose in life is to protect others to the point of laying down her life in the approved fashion (”all his other knights wanted things of him, castles or honors or riches, but all that Brienne wanted was to die for him”), but that Renly wasn’t actually worthy of her service. Hence why Brienne spends all of AFFC looking for a maiden in need of defending, while slowly forgetting Renly and developing a deeper connection to Jaime.
Now, I have a darker guess about what Brienne’s endgame is than some people would like, but I think it’s definitely grounded in the rules and forms of chivalric romance and thus in Brienne’s character…
“…wolves’ work, or maybe lions, what’s the difference?”
Synopsis: Jaime, Brienne, and Ser Cleos arrive at the Inn of the Kneeling Man, where everybody knows your name.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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“He remembered the pail Lady Catelyn had kicked over in his cell. A strange woman, to trust her girls to a man with shit for honor.” Synopsis: Brienne takes Jaime and Ser Cleos down the river, where they are almost caught by Ser Robin Ryger. SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat…