“All I Ever Wanted Was to Fight for a Lord I Believed in. But the Good Lords Are Dead and the Rest Are Monsters”: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and the Chivalric “Other”

MacInnes, Iain A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-25041-6_4

“All I Ever Wanted Was to Fight for a Lord I Believed in. But the Good Lords Are Dead and the Rest Are Monsters”: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and the Chivalric “Other”

Iain A. MacInnes⁵

Chapter
First Online: 15 February 2020

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Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

Abstract

Although George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and the accompanying HBO television show Game of Thrones are set in the fantasy land of Westeros, there can be little doubt of their correlation with the medieval world. The importance of medieval chivalry as an underpinning for the narrative of these texts is therefore clear. But rather than privileging the chivalric ideal, Game of Thrones instead deliberately deconstructs and ultimately undermines the construct of the medieval chivalric hero. A chivalric hero should be honourable, loyal, and brave, and while some knightly characters in Game of Thrones appear to possess these qualities, it is repeatedly revealed that their adherence to the chivalric ideal is largely superficial. Jaime Lannister is one such example. Over the course of the narrative Lannister does, however, go through something of a transformative process. The catalyst for some of this change is arguably the shared experience and companionship of Brienne of Tarth as she escorts Lannister from Stark captivity to King’s Landing. It is the purpose of this chapter to examine the depiction of these two knightly figures, and in particular their shared relationship. Considering the place of chivalry as the belief system that links the two together, this chapter analyses the extent to which either character represents the medieval chivalric warrior, or something other.

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Notes

1.
See Anne Gjelsvik and Rikke Schubart, eds., Women of Ice and Fire: Gender, Game of Thrones, and Multiple Media Engagements (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016); Valerie Estelle Frankel, Women in Game of Thrones: Power, Conformity and Resistance (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 2014); Brian A. Pavlac, ed., Game of Thrones Versus History: Written in Blood (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2017); Carolyne Larrington, Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016); Henry Jacoby, ed., Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2012); Jes Battis and Susan Johnston, eds., Mastering the Game of Thrones: Essays on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 2015).
2.
Frankel , Women in Game of Thrones, 47–55; Jessica Walker, ““Just songs in the end”: Historical Discourses in Shakespeare and Martin,” in Mastering the Game of Thrones, 71–91; Yvonne Tasker and Lindsay Steenberg, “Women Warriors from Chivalry to Vengeance,” in Women of Ice and Fire, 171–192; Charles H. Hackney, ““Silk ribbons tied around a sword”: Knighthood and the Chivalric Virtues in Westeros,” in Mastering the Game of Thrones, 132–150; Susan Johnston, “Grief poignant as joy: Dyscatastrophe and eucatastrophe in A Song of Ice and Fire,” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, 31, no. 1 (2012): 133–154; Inbar Shaham, “Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister: A romantic comedy within HBO’s Game of Thrones,” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, 33, no. 2 (2015): 51–73; Stacey Goguen, ““There are no true knights”: The Injustice of Chivalry,” in Game of Thrones and Philosophy, 205–219; Nicole M. Mares, “Writing the Rules of Their Own Game: Medieval Female Agency and Game of Thrones,” in Game of Thrones Versus History, 147–160; Jaime Hovey, “Tyrion’s gallantry,” Critical Quarterly, 57, no. 1 (2015): 86–98; Debra Ferreday, “Game of Thrones, Rape Culture and Feminist Fandom,” Australian Feminist Studies, 30, no. 83 (2015): 21–36.
3.
Hovey, “Tyrion’s gallantry,” 90–92; Frankel, Women in Game of Thrones, 38; Mares, “Writing the Rules of Their Own Game,” 150–151; Beth Kozinsky, ““A thousand bloodstained hands”: The Malleability of Flesh and Identity,” in Mastering the Game of Thrones, 170–188, at 179–180; Kavita Mudan Finn, “Queen of Sad Mischance: Medievalism, ‘Realism,’ and the case of Cersei Lannister,” in Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz, eds., Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 29–52; Charles Lambert, “A tender spot in my heart: disability in A Song of Ice and Fire,” Critical Quarterly, 57, no. 1 (2015): 20–33, at 31–32.
4.
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, 1: Steel and Snow (hereafter SoS1) (London: Harper Voyager, 2011), 21.
5.
George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (hereafter GoT) (London: Harper Voyager, 2011), 77–81.
6.
George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (hereafter CoK) (London: Harper Voyager, 2011), 714–722; SoS1, 18–20.
7.
For possible specific periods relevant to Martin’s construct, see in this volume, Charles Beem, “The Royal Minorities of Game of Thrones,” in Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz, eds., Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 189–204; Finn, “Queen of Sad Mischance,” 29–52; Mikayla Hunter, “‘All Men Must Die, But We Are Not Men’: Eastern Faith and Feminine Power in A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones,” in Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz, eds., Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 145–168.
8.
Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 219–237; Matthew Strickland, War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 159–182; Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 225–248.
9.
Finn, “Queen of Sad Mischance”; Goguen, “The Injustice of Chivalry,” 207.
10.
Keen, Chivalry, 1–17.
11.
Gillian Polack, “Setting up Westeros: The Medievalesque World of Game of Thrones,” in Game of Thrones Versus History, 251–260.
12.
Goguen, “The injustice of chivalry,” 209.
13.
Hackney, “Chivalric Virtues in Westeros,” 132.
14.
Ibid., 136, 133.
15.
Keen, Chivalry, 1–17; Richard W. Kaeuper, Medieval Chivalry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1–56.
16.
Barber, The Knight and Chivalry, 105–131.
17.
Carroll Gilmor, “Practical Chivalry: The Training of Horses for Tournaments and Warfare,” Medieval and Renaissance History, 13 (1992): 7–29.
18.
Thomas Gray, Scalacronica, 1272–1362, ed. Andy King (Woodbridge: Surtees Society, 2005); Andy King, “Englishmen, Scots and Marchers: National and Local Identities in Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica,” Northern History, 36 (2000): 217–231; Andy King, “A Helm with a Crest of Gold: the Order of Chivalry in Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica,” Fourteenth Century England, 1 (2000): 21–35; Andy King, “War and Peace: a Knight’s Tale. The ethics of war in Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica,” in Chris Given-Wilson, Ann Kettle and Len Scales, eds., War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150–1500: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), 148–162.
19.
Iain A. MacInnes, Scotland’s Second War of Independence, 1332–1357 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016), 203–204.
20.
Scalacronica (King), 3.
21.
George R.R. Martin, “The Hedge Knight,” in Robert Silverberg, ed., Legends (London: Voyager, 1998), 518. This same ritual is utilised in the final television series of Game of Thrones when Jaime Lannister does in fact knight Brienne of Tarth at Winterfell ahead of the battle with the White Walkers. It removes, however, the pledge to defend “the young” and removes the final line about protecting women altogether (Game of Thrones, 8.2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” (dir. David Nutter, 2019)).
22.
Strickland, War and Chivalry, 99.
23.
Scalacronica (King), 115; King, “A Helm with a Crest of Gold,” 34–35.
24.
Ibid.
25.
George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows (hereafter FfC) (London: Harper Voyager, 2011), 597–600.
26.
GoT, 110, 611; David Hahn, “The Death of Lord Eddard Stark: The Perils of Idealism,” in Game of Thrones and Philosophy, 75–86.
27.
Game of Thrones, 5.10, “Mother’s Mercy” (dir. David Nutter, 2015).
28.
Thomas Roche, “The Way Vengeance Comes: Rancorous Deeds and Words in the World of Orderic Vitalis,” in Susanna A. Throop and Paul R. Hyams, eds., Vengeance in the Middle Ages: Emotion, Religion and Feud (London: Routledge, 2010), 115–136.
29.
Kaeuper, Medieval Chivalry, 353–381.
30.
Paul R. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 8–9.
31.
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords, 2: Blood and Gold (hereafter SoS2) (London: Harper Voyager, 2011), 280.
32.
SoS1, 27–32.
33.
SoS1, 294, 417–419; SoS2, 45–49.
34.
SoS1, 289–292.
35.
The television series continues this depiction of Brienne’s bravery, including her defeat of Sandor Clegane (“the Hound”) in single combat and her performance, and survival, at the battle of Winterfell (Game of Thrones, 4.10, “The Children” (dir. Alex Graves, 2014); Game of Thrones, 8.3, “The Long Night” (dir. Miguel Sapochnik, 2019)).
36.
SoS1, 25–27.
37.
Ibid., 154.
38.
Ibid., 416.
39.
Ibid., 421–425, 503–516.
40.
Roose Bolton’s duplicitous conduct plays out in full across both volumes of A Storm of Swords.
41.
Scalacronica (King), 3.
42.
Gray himself wrote that inducing “fear of harm [amongst an enemy populace], or destruction of property during war…brings honour, profit and joy” (King, “War and Peace,” 158).
43.
SoS1, 287–288.
44.
Game of Thrones, 7.6, “Beyond the Wall” (dir. Alan Taylor, 2017).
45.
Catelyn Stark confronts Jaime Lannister in his prison cell about his attack on her son, Bran, with the words “you were a knight, sworn to defend the weak and innocent” (CoK, 717).
46.
Game of Thrones, 3.2, “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (dir. Daniel Minahan, 2013).
47.
See, for example, Arya’s stay at a sacked sept in Sallydance (SoS1, 300).
48.
SoS1, 296.
49.
For discussion of religion in Westeros, see Don Riggs, “Continuity and Transformation in the Religions of Westeros and Western Europe,” in Game of Thrones Versus History, 173–184; Maureen Attali, “Religious Violence in Game of Thrones: An Historical Background from Antiquity to the European Wars of Religion,” in Ibid., 185–194; Daniel J. Clasby, “Coexistence and Conflict in the Religions of Game of Thrones,” in Ibid., 195–208.
50.
SoS1, 20.
51.
Ibid., 417.
52.
Ibid., 294–295.
53.
Ibid., 418–419.
54.
SoS2, 45–49.
55.
Shaham, “Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister,” 70.
56.
SoS1, 18, 28, 30, 154, 291, 294, 295, 417, 418.
57.
For discussion of Daenerys Targaryen and her ability to adopt the positive aspects of both genders, taking on the role of “she-king,” see in this volume, Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, “Westerosi Queens: Medievalist Portrayal of Female Power and Authority in A Song of Ice and Fire,” in Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz, eds., Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 53–75.
58.
Larrington, Winter is Coming, 32–34; James M. Blythe, “Women in the military: scholastic arguments and medieval images of female warriors,” History of Political Thought, 22, no. 2 (2001): 242–269; Megan McLaughlin, “The woman warrior: gender, warfare and society in medieval Europe,” Women’s Studies, 17, no. 3/4 (1990): 193–209; Helen Solterer, “Figures of Female Militancy in Medieval France,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 16, no. 3 (1991): 522–549.
59.
Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Stroud: Sutton, 2003).
60.
McLaughlin, “The woman warrior,” 194–195.
61.
FfC 238; D. Marcel DeCoste, “Beyond the Pale? Craster and the Pathological Reproduction of Houses in Westeros,” in Mastering the Game of Thrones, 225–242, at 241, n. 4.
62.
Tasker and Steenberg, “Women Warriors from Chivalry to Vengeance,” in Women of Ice and Fire, 189.
63.
Frankel , Women in Game of Thrones, 1–3. See also, in this volume, Finn, “Queen of Sad Mischance,” 29–52; Borowska-Szerszun, “Westerosi Queens,” 53–75; Kris Swank, “The Peaceweavers of Winterfell,” in Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz, eds., Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 105–127.
64.
Frankel, Women in Game of Thrones, 47–49.
65.
Game of Thrones, 8.2.
66.
For other examples of women challenging, and ultimately being defeated by the patriarchal order of Westerosi and medieval society, see Borowska-Szerszun, “Westerosi Queens,” 53–75.
67.
GoT, 48; Ferreday, “Rape Culture,” 28.
68.
Katherine Tullman, “Dany’s Encounter with the Wild: Cultural Relativism in A Game of Thrones,” in Game of Thrones and Philosophy, 194–204; Martin Bleisteiner, “Perils of Generation: Incest, Romance, and the Proliferation of Narrative in Game of Thrones,” in Andrew James Johnston, Margitta Rouse and Philipp Hinz, eds., The Medieval Motion Picture: The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 155–169.
69.
SoS1, 19–21.
70.
Ibid., 416–417.
71.
Ibid., 505–508.
72.
SoS2, 338–342.
73.
The television series ultimately takes this relationship further when Jaime rides to Winterfell to satisfy the oath he took to protect “the living” and asks that Brienne allow him to serve at her side, under her command, in the battle to follow (Game of Thrones, 8.2).
74.
The armour is an addition in the television series, but it is an important one that adds to the gift of the sword provided in the books (see Game of Thrones, 4.4, “Oathkeeper” (dir. Michelle MacLaren, 2014); SoS2, 432–435).
75.
SoS1, 508–509; SoS2, 45–46, 431–432.
76.
Rachel Ann Dressler, Of Armor and Men in Medieval England: The Chivalric Rhetoric of Three English Knights’ Effigies (London: Routledge, 2004), 98–120.
77.
Keen, Chivalry, 66–71.
78.
SoS2, 434–435.
79.
Keen, Chivalry¸ 64–82.
80.
Ibid., 64–71.
81.
As already indicated, the final season of Game of Thrones does provide a formal dubbing of Brienne, with Jaime Lannister being the one to promote her to the status of knight. There is a notion here of events coming full circle, although it can also be suggested that the act in itself undercuts the agency with which Brienne made herself a knight. That it requires Jaime Lannister to provide confirmation of a status she has arguably already attained potentially reinforces the patriarchal nature of Westerosi (and modern) society (Game of Thrones, 8.2). For discussion of the dubbing, see Elizabeth S. Leet, “Brienne of Tarth is a Heroine for our Age,” The Public Medievalist, 9 May 2019 (https://www.publicmedievalist.com/brienne-of-tarth-is-a-heroine-for-our-age/); Lily Rothman and Joëlle Rollo-Koster, “The Real History of Medieval Knights Makes Brienne’s Big Game of Thrones Moment Even More Meaningful,” Time, 25 April 2019 (http://time.com/5575825/game-of-thrones-brienne-knighting-history/).
82.
SoS2, 433.
83.
The final television series subverts this analysis somewhat by including sexual intimacy between Brienne and Jaime, creating a knight-lover relationship that problematises a more chivalric reading of their bond (Game of Thrones, 8.4, “The Last of the Starks” (dir. David Nutter, 2019)). This ultimately occurs, however, at the end of a long period in which their relationship has undergone significant change from the events discussed in this chapter and, crucially, after the events of a climactic battle in which Jaime chose to serve under the command and at the side of his knightly comrade, and which they both survived (Game of Thrones, 8.3).
84.
SoS2, 435. In the final episode of the television series, the entry provided by Jaime Lannister is shorter and does not allude to Brienne at all. Instead it is left to Ser Brienne, now Lord Commander of the Kingsguard of King Brandon the Broken, to complete the entry for Ser Jaime, writing: “Captured in the field at the Whispering Wood, set free by Lady Catelyn Stark in return for an oath to find [and protect] her two daughters, lost [his hand] … Took Rivverrun from the Tully rebels, without loss of life. Lured the Unsullied into attacking Casterly Rock, sacrificing his childhood home in service to a greater strategy. Outwitted the Targaryen forces to seize Highgarden. Fought at the Battle of the Goldroad bravely, narrowly escaping death by dragonfire. Pledged himself to the forces of men and rode north to join them at Winterfell, alone. Faced the Army of the Dead and defended the castle against impossible odds until the defeat of the Night King. Escaped imprisonment and rode south in an attempt to save the capital from destruction. Died protecting his Queen” (Game of Thrones, 8.6, “The Iron Throne” (dir. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, 2019)); Anjelica Oswald, “Here’s everything Brienne wrote inside the Kingsguard book during the Game of Thrones finale,” Business Insider, 19 May 2019 (https://www.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-brienne-wrote-in-kingsguard-book-2019-5?r=US&IR=T). Ser Brienne’s entry remains to be written, but it is one that she is likely to write herself.

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UHI Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands, Dornoch, UK
Iain A. MacInnes

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Iain A. MacInnes
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Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Zita Eva Rohr
Salem, MA, USA
Lisa Benz

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MacInnes, I.A. (2020). “All I Ever Wanted Was to Fight for a Lord I Believed in. But the Good Lords Are Dead and the Rest Are Monsters”: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and the Chivalric “Other”. In: Rohr, Z., Benz, L. (eds) Queenship and the Women of Westeros. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25041-6_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25041-6_4
Published: 15 February 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25040-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25041-6
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