Jaime Lannister is a perfectly nice guy: Lord Krishna

In the uber-rational world of the Mahabharata, the Pandavas weren’t saintly people. They didn’t have a right to the throne - they were the sons of the younger prince - and they had already lost their kingdom in a game of dice.

They won the great war because their flaws weren’t as vulnerable as that of the Kauravas.

The universe, according to Krishna, was based not on a scale of morality, but on the sense of duty. Arjun had to kill his brothers not because they had done something wrong, but because it was his duty to protect his family’s honour.

This gets us to the Kingslayer.

Jaime just wants to be with his lover, Cersei, who happens to be his sister. He isn’t a person of the world. He doesn’t want to rule his ancestral home of Casterly Rock, he doesn’t crave power.

He threw a kid off a ledge for Cersei, he promised to fling Lord Edmure’s son into the castle of Blackfish - all for her.

“Things I do for love,” he said in the first episode of Game of Thrones.

But everything he does is seen through the prism of his illegitimate relationship with Cersei.

When he’s away from Cersei though Jaime is (sometimes) morally in the right. Honourable even.

He saved Brienne multiple times, he promised Catelyn Stark to return her daughter to safety and he even went against his father’s wishes to save his brother Tyrion Lannister.

He had himself branded Kingslayer, his honour tarnished forever because he killed the Mad King who was on the verge of setting an entire city on fire.

Jaime is good things and bad.

***

Near the end of the Mahabharata, the eldest Pandava, Yudhistira, witnesses the death of his brothers and his wife on the road to heaven. One by one all of them fall, which Yudhistira attributes to their tragic flaws.

Draupadi’s preference for Arjun over her other husbands, Arjun’s jealousy towards other archers, Bhima's gluttony, et al lead them to doom.

In the entire epic (And like Game of Thrones), characters die because of inherent vices, not because of karma and tangible means like strength or having a small army.

Keeping that in mind, in a world of free moral economy, all flaws are equal.

Jaime’s love for Cersei and what stems from it is as damaging as Bran’s curiosity, which leads to the death of his parents and brothers.

Everything Jaime has done for Cersei isn’t different from Ned Stark going to war and killing people in the name of honour.

I don’t know who, but someone somewhere decided to put honour above love on the morality scale and that has screwed up the way we look at the world.

Jaime’s love for Cersei as a motivation for the things he does is similar to Oberyn’s arrogance or Ned’s stupidity or Rob's habit of breaking promises.

The devastating sadness of Jaime Lannister is that the only reason he’s playing the Great Game and getting whooped around is to get to Cersei. But she has f*cked other men, couldn’t protect their children and destroyed the city Jaime gave up his world for.

The night is full of heartbreaks and pain for the Kingslayer. 

*Shoutout to Kevin Kennith Lee*