Guest Post by Siddhant Menon
Game of Thrones, the epic television (book) saga, definitely
filled in the vacuum left behind by masterpieces such as Lord of the Rings for old
timers and Harry Potter for the millennials; violence and romance with a dash
of supernatural elements, GOT had it all. Along with generic appeals to the
masses, however, the Television series Game of Thrones also made use of a TON of
truly genius literary devices and archetypes and set them ablaze with new found
creativity.
The anti-hero, the misunderstood monster, the beautiful vixen,
the power-crazed king, the tragic knight, the damsel in distress. These are
just a FEW of the literary archetypes that have been portrayed in the web of colourful
characters presented to us in Game of Thrones.
But where GOT differs from traditional portrayals of such
archetypes is the transformation of such archetypes into a different archetype altogether by the
end of the show; every one of the Stark kids for instance.
And hence the overarching theme of this show has always been
‘character arcs’; the fancy word implying the transformation of characters with
respect to their motivations in life, ambitions, and approaches to said
ambitions.
Literature dictionary
- 1) Character arc: The changes in a characters motivations and behaviours as
the plot moves forward.
Now in a show like Game of Thrones, tracking a character’s
arc could be quite a challenge given that the plot is not always presented to
the viewer chronologically. Thus presenting newer, more exciting character
storylines than we can traditionally expect.
In my personal taste in stories, the most interesting
character to follow this trajectory is the character whose archetypical
transformation is most intriguing. In the show Game of Thrones, such a
character to me is Ser Jaime Lannister aka the King Slayer. So let’s use him as
an example, however, the point is that this holds true for MOST Characters in
Game of Thrones.
The story of Jaime Lannister involves multiple truths that
are revealed to the viewer at different points of the story, thus presenting a transformation
in OUR eyes as opposed to the transformation in the character himself. The
transformation in the character might be an internal
transformation, like what could be argued was happening with Jaime during his
time in captivity with Brienne.
Now during these scenes, we as viewers are revealed to a lot
of truth about Jaime’s personality, but these truths are not new, and hence
Jaime himself is not transformed by our knowledge of his past.
However, during these scenes, due perhaps to the vulnerable
condition Jaime was at this point of time, he was having internal breakthroughs
on who he was as a person, and what his ‘oaths’ meant to him. This
transformation reached a climax at the moment when Jaime jumped into the ‘bear
den’ with brienne.
With no strength, and no plan in mind, Jaime jumped in to
save Brienne. That was a transformational moment. This was the moment to me
when Jaime went from ‘family’ to ‘honor’ in his mind, defying everything that
his father Tywin had been trying to teach him all his life.'
Thus the first archetypical shift of Ser Jaime Lannister to
me was from ‘Prince Charming’ to ‘Noble knight’.
Note:
From this point onward I will use the phrase ‘Prince Charming’ to describe a personality
archetype that is self-worthy, pompous, spoiled, talented but not worth his
talents, type of personality. This is in no reference to any specific story character or movie character from history.
Speaking of internal transformations, it is interesting that
when Qyburn is bandaging Jaime's hand, the conversation goes as such...
“How many men have you killed my lord? …countless?”
- - Countless has a nice ring to it.
"And how many men have you saved?"
- - Half a million.. the population of King’s Landing.
Thus revealing a true realization of his own self, his worth;
which in turn made him go back to save Brienne. Knowledge of one’s power can be
a beautiful…and possibly dangerous thing.
The SECOND archetypical shift in Jaime Lannister, which most
of the #GOT die-hard fans hated, was his final decision to leave behind his
honor to go back to his family.
However, if we look at this in term of archetypes, at this point
of time Jaime is a man of honor. He chose to fight for what was right, against
all odds, and transformed from a “Prince Charming’ to a
Knoble Knight’. Then HOW is it possible that in the
penultimate episode of the show the character we had started to love, go back
from a 'Knight' to 'Prince Charming'.
Well… The truth according to me is that he didn’t go back to his old archetype at all. Instead his transformation carried on in the
forward direction. He went from being honorable to the world, to honor towards
love.
Love is an individualistic feeling, as opposed to honor
which is pluralist...
Love might not always be honorable. At least you can’t deny that DEFINITELY holds
true in Jaime Lannister’s life history; that loving someone does not always
equate to doing the honorable thing.
So there was no resolution of the honor vs family (which
to him was Cercei, same as love) dichotomy for Jaime.
In the aftermath of the war against the undead therefore,
Jaime Lannister went from Ser Jaime, to Love-conquers-all Queensguard Lord
Commander Ser Jaime Lannister. In archetypical transformations, the “Noble
Knight” had evolved into “the Knight in Shining Armour”.
: ) : ( : |
Obviously, by my interpretation above, I don’t believe Jaime
Lannister is making any big comeback in the show’s finale. But if opinions differ,
please leave a reply ;)
Video Credits: The song was sung by me, Siddhant and the drawing is by my very talented friend Sanyukta -> Instagram: _Artysan_ -> Follow her account for some spectacular human emotions captured with a paper and some pencils.
Thanks Sana for letting ramble my thoughts and share my love for this show on your blog :D
