AFfC 44: Jaime VII

Riverrun has been surrendered. Edmure Tully did exactly what Jaime asked of him. Jaime released him, he walked in to Riverrun, and thus became its Lord again. He ordered the castle to lay down their arms and surrender to Jaime.

However, he did add in one little twist…

Jaime: WHAT THE FUCK, EDMURE?! You let the Blackfish escape before surrendering the castle?! THAT WAS NOT PART OF THE DEAL!

Edmure: Correct, it was not part of the deal. But I also don’t remember it being NOT NOT part of the deal. The deal was not, “surrender the castle and don’t let Blackfish sneak out in the middle of the night.”

Emmon Frey: THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I say you kill Edmure now!

Jaime (externally): Don’t worry, Frey. The Blackfish can’t get far. We will catch him soon. And when we do… he is a dead man.

Jaime (internally): Oh, there is no fucking way we’re ever going to catch the Blackfish.

Emmon storms off.

Jaime: Well, you really screwed the pooch on this one, Edmure. I gave you the luxury of being a prisoner, living in comfort at Casterly Rock with your wife and child. I could have offered much less sweet terms to you. And you still defy me.

Edmure: Sweet terms? Sweet terms? Here you are. Standing inside of Riverrun. The castle that I grew up in. Over there in that corner… I was a small boy, watching my father rule this place. I always knew one day it would be mine. So many life experiences were all here. This is the home of House Tully. My father died in that bed right over there. And now I have surrendered it to you. I have spit on my father’s legacy. It makes me physically sick to see you in here. To see the Lannisters and Freys who brutally murdered my sister and my nephew as guests at a wedding, now claim my ancestral home. And to have to surrender it to you. A kingslayer and oathbreaker. A sisterfucker. I fucking despise you.

Jaime: I have been despised by better. I’ll get over it.

Next, Jaime meets with Robb Stark’s widow, Jeyne Westerling, and her mother Lady Sybell.

Jaime: Hrm, look at this girl with her narrow hips. I can’t believe that Robb Stark betrayed the alliance with the Freys for this girl. Whatever. It worked out for the Lannisters, I suppose. 

Jeyne: Wait, wait, wait… did you just say that I have NARROW HIPS?

Jaime: Yeah. I think they’re sort of narrow.

Jeyne: But when Lady Cat Stark first met me, she specifically pointed out how WIDE my hips were!!!

Jaime: Hrmm. Odd. Whatver. Anyway… this girl isn’t pregnant or anything, is she?

Lady Sybell: No. Of course not. Just as Lord Tywin bid me, I made sure she drank of the magical abortion moon tea so that she could not get pregnant.

Jaime: WAIT! If I’m worried about Robb Stark having an heir if Jeyne is pregnant… and there is now a discrepancy about Jeyne’s physical appearance… does that mean that… *GASP*… FAN THEORY… Jeyne Westerling has been swapped out with an imposter and is still out there… perhaps WITH CHILD?

Jeyne: That would be cool and everything. But no. I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m Jeyne. GRRM stated that it was an error. And your line about my small hips is explicitly removed in later editions of this book that were published.

Jaime: Oh.

Jeyne: I mean if GRRM wanted to leave it in there as a clue and plot point, then there would be no reason to edit it out later. I think people are probably trying to overly complicate things here. Besides, if Robb Stark has a living heir, then that would complicate the King of the North line of succession thing with Jon Snow and all. Which was a super important plot point with Robb sending out Galbart Glover and Maege Mormont with a letter saying that Jon Snow was his heir.

Jaime: Oh yeah. I forgot about that secret letter. Wow. A Storm of Swords Chapter 45, huh? That was a loooooong time ago. Have Galbart and Maege shown up anywhere yet with that letter?

Jeyne: No.

Lady Sybell: Anyway, like I was saying… I made an “understanding” with the Lannisters to make sure that Jeyne wasn’t pregnant. Tywin made a bunch of promises to me. Restoring land and titles and stuff. Including the release of my son Raynald, who was at the Red Wedding with Robb. Lord Tywin promised to arrange a high-born marriage for him.

Jaime: He probably dead, but I’ll check. As for all these promises Tywin made to you… I know nothing of them. And Tywin is dead now, so I can’t confirm what he might have—

Lady Sybell: —Well you better fucking keep up Tywin’s promises, dickface. I thought you Lannisters “always paid your debts.” You gonna dick us over?

Jaime: Wow. Pretty bold of a scheming, turncloak bitch who flip-flops between Team Stark and Team Lannister at the drop of a hat. But yeah, I’ll fulfill your promises. Maybe Rayland, if he’s alive, can marry Joy, my uncle Garion’s natural daughter.

Lady Sybell: Natural daughter? You mean BASTARD?! I won’t have my boy marrying no filthy bastard!

Jaime: Joy is worth ten of your fucking probably-dead Raynalds, you cunt. FUCK. Like I said, I’ll follow up on whatever schemes you made with my dad. But I won’t be happy about it. In fact, I want to take that necklace you’re wearing and strangle you with it right now. But I won’t.

Lady Sybell: Interesting. Do you have a strangling fetish, huh? Like… strangling women? As in the way that your sister, Cersei, dies in the prophecy of Maggy the Frog. When she’s strangled by the hands of the valonqar. Which means “younger brother,” which – as it has been established – you are to Cersei.

Jaime: Okay, I’m leaving now. You’re being sent as hostages with Edmure to Casterly Rock. If any of you try to escape… I’ll have you shot.

Jeyne: Shot? But guns haven’t been invented yet!

Jaime: I’m pretty sure I’m referring to arrows. Ugh. You two. Sometimes I wish you had just gone to that wedding and been killed there.

Jeyne sticks her tongue out.

Next Jaime goes to visit Edwyn Frey. Edwyn is not happy.

Edwyn: HEY YOU! ASSHOLE! YOU KILLED MY FATHER!

Jaime: Excuse me now?

Edwyn: Remember? My father Ryman! He was drunk and with that hooker on the battlefield. When he got in your face about releasing Edmure, you dismissed him and sent him back to the Twins to go inform Lord Walder to turn over all his prisoners to the Lannisters.

Jaime: Yes. I remember him. What about it? What do you mean he’s dead?

Edwyn: He was killed on the road, returning home! By those damn outlaws! Lady Stoneheart and her crew hanged him and his entire retinue near Fairmarket.

Jaime: Hrm. These outlaws grow bolder. And so close to the Twins? How the hell could they have known about Ryman though? HOW?! It’s like they have some sort of spy in this camp or something.

Tom O’ Sevens: *cough*cough* Oh, excuse me. Just the musician over here. A little bit of a cough.

Jaime: I don’t see what you’re bitching about anyway, Edwyn. Ryman was the heir to the Twins, no?

Edwyn: Indeed he was.

Jaime: And you’re Ryman’s eldest son, no?

Edwyn: I am.

Jaime: So when old man Walder finally fucking dies…

Edwyn: OH SHIT! I’M THE HEIR NOW! SWEET!

Jaime: Yeah, until one of your rival family members kills you. Probably your brother, Black Walder.

Edwyn: WAIT. WHAT?

Jaime: Oh, you know how it is with you Freys.

Edwyn: Hrm. You know… it wouldn’t put it past Walder to be behind father’s death. And he’s plotting for my death soon next, probably!

Jaime: Sweet dreams on that, Eddie! But I think it’s far more likely that Lady Stoneheart’s gang did it on their own as a complex plot to viciously murder everyone who was involved in the Red Wedding. So unless you played a direct part in the vicious murder of people under guest's rights, you have nothing to fear.

Edwyn: *nervous sweating*

Jaime: Anyway, the order to free those hostages still needs to be fulfilled. Tell me, is Rayland Westerling one of those hostages? Apparently my father made a deal to send him back to the Westerlings in exchange for their returned submission to us.

Edwyn: Robb Stark's squire boy? He took a bunch of arrows when he was trying to free Grey Wind from his cage. Then he stumbled off and fell into the river. We never found a corpse.

Jaime: Eh. Well I guess one set of bones looks like another. We might as well find some bones and send them to Lady Sybell. That the gods for that. Now Joy doesn't have to marry that dickwad.

Edwyn: Unless, you know, he’s still alive. You know how it is with GRRM and these things. No corpse. He might still be alive.

Jaime: Ugh. Enough damn fan theories this chapter!

Jaime them moves on to other business.

Jaime: I suppose Riverrun isn’t the only holdout that needs to be captured. Although it is the most important. Still, Lord Tytos Blackwood still holds Raventree. Guess we better go there next. Although Lord Blackwood is an old, feeble man… I guess he could still challenge me to combat for the castle. And he could probably still win. Because my sparring with Ser Ilyn has been doing NOTHING for me.

He goes off to spar some more, and as he fights with Ser Ilyn, he continues to confess about all his sex with his sister, and everything Tyrion told him about her fucking half of Kings Landing. Ilyn, who can’t really laugh, does his best Lady Stoneheart impression and wheezes some noises, which I guess are his version of laughter.

The next morning, Ser Dermot of the Rainwood comes to report to Jaime about the search for the Blackfish.

Dermot: Ser Jaime, my men were set upon by hundreds of wolves, led by some sort of crazy, large she-wolf.

Jaime: Hahaha, Nymeria. Cool. Anyway, did you find him?

Dermot: No. I literally just said that my men were attacked by hundreds of wolves.

Jaime: Oh. Then you better try again today. WE NEED TO FIND THE BLACKFISH!

Dermot: But… but… WOLVES. Hundreds. Of. Wolves.

Jaime: Right. Be safe out there. Bye!

Next Jaime goes to decide the fate of the Riverlords Robin Ryger and Desmond Grell, who…

Jaime: --WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Stop for a second. Now I’m meeting with and/or deciding the fate of the Riverlords?

Yes.

Jaime: But I already had scenes with Edmure Tully and Emmon Frey, Jeyne Westerling and her mom, Edwyn Frey, sparring with Illyn Payne, and then another convo with Dermont of the Rainwood. This chapter is going all fucking over the place and I’m meeting with 6,000 different people.

Well, yeah. It’s your last POV chapter of the book, so we’re closing up a lot of loose ends.

Jaime: Jesus Christ man. How many more conversations am I going to have with people?

A bunch.

Jaime: And what am I doing with these Ryger and Grell guys?

You’re going to let them take up the black for surrendering. And you’ll assign Raff the Sweetling to take them to Maidenpool on their voyage there.

Jaime: Cool, cool. Now that you’ve explained that, we can move on. Next?

Ah, well you’re also going to talk to Lyle Crakehall, AKA Strongboar. You’re going to task him with going to Darry to try to find the Hound. Then you’ll warn him that if he catches Beric Dondarrion, that he is to be taken alive so that he can be publicly executed. Since nobody ever believes he is dead because all the previous times people said he was dead.

Jaime: Okay, that sounds like something I’d do. Anything else?

You’ll have another conversation with your Aunt Genna and--

Jaime: --OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Genna again?

Y-yes.

Jaime: Can we just hurry this filler shit up? Christ, no wonder all of this bullshit was cut from the show.

Calm down Jaime, I’m just narrating your chapter, man.

Jaime: Right. But this is just droning on and on. Can we do a speed run or something from here on out?

Okay. I guess. If it will quit your bitching.

Jaime: It will.

Okay, so your convo with Genna happens after a big speech that Ser Emmon delivers to Riverrun, now that he’s the Lord of it. During that speech, you’ll totally zone out and talk to that singer guy again.

Tom O’ Sevens: That’s me!

Jaime: Ah, okay. Now we’re getting somewhere interesting. The spy guy working for Stoneheart who has infiltrated the Frey camp. Only narratively I don’t know that. What interesting things do you have to say?

Tom O’ Sevens: Oh, just that I hope to stick around here at Riverrun and play for your Aunt Gemma and Lord Emmon this winter.

Jaime: Sweet. So I guess they’re as good as dead then, huh?

Tom O’ Sevens: Maybe! Guess we’ll see if GRRM ever gets around to writing The Winds of Winter!

Jaime: That’s fine. Gemma dissed me pretty rough, so I won’t miss that bitch. OKAY, enough of that. Narrator, let’s move this along again!

Next Jaime goes to bed and has a freaky dream about his mom, who he doesn’t really remember.

Spooky Dream Ghost of  Lady Joanna Lannister: OooOoOoo! Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight and his daughter a Queen. Too bad that never came true!

Jaime: Uhh… I am a knight and Cersei is a queen. What are you talking about?

Dream Ghost Joanna: Are you? Are you a knight? WHO ARE YOU REALLY, JAIME?!

She turns away and begins weeping. 

 Jaime then wakes up.

Jaime: Whoa. That was a freaky dream. Aren’t dreams supposed to be important or matter. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

No clue. Moving on, since you seem tired of fan theories. After Jaime emerges from sleep, he looks outside and sees that it is snowing.

Jaime: OH SHIT! It’s the first snowfall! Just like that asshole Ned Stark used to say… well… you know.

Riverrun’s Maester, Vyman, then comes into Jaime’s room.

Maester Vyman: Lord Lannister, a raven has arrived.

Jaime: Yes. I can guess its contents. It was a white raven, no? From the Citadel, saying that Winter has arrived.

Vyman: Uh… no.

Jaime: Oh shit. Really?

Vyman: I mean you expect the first time you see a snowflake for a fucking magical white raven to arrive at that exact instant to tell you that it’s winter?

Jaime: No… it’s just that I… uhh… okay, fuck you, dude. What’s the raven say?

Vyman: Usually just "corn."

Jaime: *sigh* I mean what does the raven's LETTER say? 

Vyman: How the fuck would I know? It’s addressed to you. I don’t go reading other people’s shit. 

Jaime: Well that’s polite of you.

Vyman: HAHAHA, just kidding. Of course I read it. Sorry about that, dude. It’s just what we Maesters do when we get letters. It was, like, super personal though. I totally blushed. It’s from King’s Landing. From your sister.

Jaime snatches the letter from Vyman’s hand and starts reading it.

Jaime: *ahem* “Dear Jaime, you absolutely won’t believe this because I am such a brilliant mastermind and plotter, but somehow through circumstances totally not my fault I have been arrested by the militant religious organization that I helped to establish for the many, many, many crimes that I have commited. I will need someone to fight for me. Please come and save me. I love you! I love you! I love you! P.S. You might also want to look into an STD test kit because I have some rashes. - Cersei.”

Vyman: It’s sort of fucked up that she just wrote “I love you” three times in it. I mean, what with you being brother and sister and all. And all those rumors.

Jaime: …

Vyman: Anyway, you want me to respond for you? I can write up a letter in response, telling her that you’re coming to save her or something. I mean you could write it yourself but OH NO WAIT, YOUR HAND HAS BEEN CUT OFF.

Jaime: Shut up, Maester Sassy.

A snowflake lands on the letter. The ink of the words starts to blur.

Jaime: And no. Put this in the fire.

Vyman: Yeah. Good call.

The letter burns.

Jaime: Let that dumb bitch get herself out of this mess. I am done with Cersei. D-O-N-E done.

Maybe.