The Journey of Jaime Lannister, A Man of Honor

Game of Thrones and the rich world of George R. R. Martin provided us with a variety of complex and multilayered characters. In my opinion, the one that went through the most fascinating personal journey was Jaime Lannister, the infamous Kingslayer.

When Game of Thrones was roughly in the middle of its run, there was a popular joke about a fan telling a new viewer that Jaime is one of his favorite characters, only to be met with disbelief, since that surely didn’t seem like the case back then. During season 1, I don’t think there were many people that liked this guy. He was arrogant, cruel and perhaps even a little bit annoying. Even during his captivity with the Starks in S2 it felt like in every moment you want Catelyn to bash another rock into his head. But during the run of the show, Jaime is the character that presented the most personal development from all the others, in my opinion.

To me it seemed there are two major principles that were always guiding Jaime, at least to some degree. These principles are the ones that defined him throughout the shows entire run, from the beginning to the very end. The first one, is his loyalty to his family- and more specifically, his love to his sister. The fact that Cersei is considered an evil character by most people is irrelevant to this issue, since Jaime loved Cersei both as a sister and as a lover. The very first despicable act he has done in the show — pushing Bran out the tower’s window, the thing that basically set all the events of the show in motion, was done to protect him and Cersei. And the dignity and power of House Lannister, of course. The other principle that he tried to follow along the way was the concept of Honor. To try and be an honorable man that is true to his words and does the right thing. And the interesting thing is that both these principles often contradict each other, leaving Jaime torn somewhere in between. This inner conflict is brilliantly brought to life by Nikolaj Coster Waldau, that with his nuanced acting in…