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Jaime Lannister died on Game of Thrones second-to-last episode. Jaime Lannister died in a loving embrace with his sister-lover, Cersei. The conclusion to the character felt out of step, and sacrificial of years of development.
For years, Jaime Lannister has arguably been the most interesting and best written character on Game of Thrones. Going from a villainous figure in the first season-someone who not only looks like Prince Charming from Shrek , but is willing to push a child out a window and stab a protagonist in the back of the leg - into a sympathetic figure who not only believable demonstrates change but somehow garners pity and reverence, has been a gift to actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau , who's portrayal of the character has never been short of brilliant.
Well, it turns out, last week I was wrong -apparently, asking for showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to keep consistent with that same character development they themselves put on screen was too much to ask.
At the end of the final season's latest episode, "The Bells," Jaime and his sister-lover, Cersei, met their end together, holding each other in one final forbidden loving embrace. The post-episode feature saw the showrunners argue that Jaime always wanted to die with the woman he loved-and that may have been the case...back in season two.
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Why would Cersei still be the woman that Jaime loves? Yes, blood is always going to be thicker than water, but lets consider all thats happened. Even setting aside the fact that Jaime and Brienne clearly had something that the show should've, and did lean into , Bronn showed up to Winterfell last week, and if Cersei had her way, he wouldve shot a crossbow bolt right through Jaimes face. Did everyone forget that this happened? Did Tyrion seriously live through this, and still suggest that his brother escape and live a life far away with his murderous, scheming sister? It seems like the showrunners might have completely forgotten that they wrote this branch storyline for Bronn.
When Jaime left Cersei a season ago, following her double-crossing the fight against the White Walkers, that should have meant something. Just as his desperate plea to join the North in the fight should have meant something; just as his choice to be the one to finally knight Brienne, and finally consummate his seasons-long simmering relationship with her should have meant something.
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Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 4, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister
At least Jaime, en route to his sister, got to give Euron Greyjoy the losers death he so badly deserved. After hearing what Tyrion said at the wall last week, Euron knew that Jaime and Cersei had still been sleeping together, and that Cerseis unborn child was Jaimes, and not a Greyjoy, as she had claimed. This, combined with the world collapsing around them, gave Jaime one last heroic moment-ridding the show of one of its last remaining truly heinous characters. Was this meant to show that Jaime still was a changed man? If that was the intention, Im not quite sure it worked-defending yourself in a fight to the death doesnt mean youve grown, it just means you arent ready to die yet. Especially not at the hands of a hyperactive pirate.
It all rings a bit empty and sudden. Its almost like someone, at some point, made a mandate-Jaime and Cersei have to die together, in one anothers arms-and Benioff and Weiss had to bend over backwards, undoing years of writing and development, to get those chess pieces into an endgame situation where that could happen.
Cersei deserved better, that's for sure. But for Jaime, it's almost like the last several years didn't happen. If someone wrote an ending for Jaime and Cersei in 2013, it could've been exactly what we saw last night. And considering what we had seen transpire, that's a pretty major problem.