womenlovefest day 1 2.0, meta, ASOIAF: three things Brienne of Tarth isn't,

[janie_tangerine]

I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them.
Maggie's Farm, Bob Dylan*

*this song couldn't fit less with ASOIAF generally, but those lines keep on screaming Brienne to me for some reason and it felt like a proper opening.

Or: hi and welcome to day one of Brienne appreciation for womenlovefest. My first day ended up being

Comments

[brijeana]

Just Jaime’s moral compass

This opinion really bothers me because it's only seeing her character as she relates to and effects Jaime. I realize that's a huge plot development but it makes me angry because I love her for who she is in her own right, not for what she does/illuminates for Jaime. GRR!

whatever is going on between her and Jaime is a mix of hard-earned respect and reciprocal influence

Yes, yes, yes! The relationship goes both ways. They are both learning and growing because of the relationship. I think Brienne empowers Jaime to draw on his OWN strength and start to decide moral boundaries for HIMSELF. I love the moment with the white book because Jaime is realizing that he can create new possibilities for himself.

he was the one person trusting her/her skills for real

OMG yes! Renly, Cat and then Jaime all treated her as a true knight. Renly trusted her with his life, Cat with her daughters, Jaime with his honor. HUGE.

Brienne doesn’t need a reality check because she already had it. Her world isn’t a song, but she wants to be in one anyway.

This is one of my very favorite things about Brienne. Other characters have hopes and dreams and romanticized fantasies, then when confronted with harsh, very harsh reality, they give up. Tyrion and Jaime come to mind. I think they really gave up on whatever dreams they had about love and knighthood because of the horror of reality. But Brienne doesn't. She keeps on believing in the ideal, not necessarily because she thinks it's real, but because she thinks it should be. Not only does she hope to be in a song one day, but she lives her life according to her ideals so stubbornly. Even though she's surrounded by acclaimed knight who do not. I love this about her.

Brienne isn’t wandering around Westeros because she thinks it’s a game. She wasn’t thinking it at the beginning and she isn’t thinking it now.

It took me a bit to realize the reality of the task Jaime set for her. To cross that war torn world in search of Sansa? That was a suicide mission. Seriously. She does it anyway because she's brave and true. Not because she's stupid. I hate that people value Littlefinger and Varys above Ned and Brienne. Yes the puppet masters are clever. I enjoy both types of characters but... what the puppet masters do is arguably evil and cowardly. Just as frankness and honor in the face of impossible odds is brave and heroic not simply naive or "stupid".

A feminist stereotype/a character put there to make feminists happy
And there were women like that! GRRM didn't just make this up! They weren't celebrated. They were considered freaks and burned as witches. It's amazing to me that people say this nowadays when brave women enlist in the military and give their lives to defend their countries all the time. I love that even in GRRM's world, Brienne is not the first warrior woman and she won't be the last.

It’s not a question of gender equality - she wants to be taken seriously for what she is.

Yes! This is what GRRM has done so skillfully with Brienne. I never feel that she's trying to be a man, or trying to prove a point. She's just trying to be herself in a world with no place for her.

I so enjoyed your thoughts!!!

[janie_tangerine]

Ugh I know. And I say it as a die hard Jaime/Brienne person, but saying that she's there just to serve his story just won't fly. :/ It's not as if she wasn't there before stumbling into him. And I loved her before she and Jaime ended up in the same scene. But clearly no one says that he was there just in order to make Brienne more flexible about judging people based on their reputation, so why should she be there just to show him that he's not as bad as he thinks? Meh.

I think Brienne empowers Jaime to draw on his OWN strength and start to decide moral boundaries for HIMSELF.

THIS SO MUCH. Just, YES, THIS. I like their relationship because it's not one sided and it's totally out of their control meaning that they started disliking each other and ended up liking each other without even realizing how exactly it happened - why does it have to be just her being his moral compass? It makes it a lot easier than it really is in truth.

I love that Jaime trusted her with his honor. And I love that she perfectly understands how huge it is and how she's so determined not to botch it. Though I think that Renly and Cat are pretty much there in terms of importance for her.

I so love how stubborn she is about wanting to be in a song too. I can't really see it as stupid or naive or not realistic - SOMEONE has to think that the world has a chance not to suck. And I love that it's -her- thinking that, when she'd have all reasons to think it's not. You're so spot-on that a lot of people in there just gave up when realizing how shitty life was, but I'll always love her for not being a quitter in that sense. ♥

Subscribing what you said forever about her going on the suicidal mission to find Sansa because she's brave and not because she's supposedly stupid. People need to get that you can be smart even if you're not a cunning mastermind. Not everyone can be Littlefinger, and to be honest I can only take so much scheming/cunning cleverly before wishing that someone was just, like, straight. (Which is why I always liked Jaime even before he lost his hand - he was a jerk but at least he was an honest jerk.) I'll rather have Brienne and Ned or Robb all over, even if they don't deliver on the oh so clever mastermind side.

So much that. Also I don't get the argument that if you're a feminist you should like a woman with a sword or whatever it is that implies. :////

Thanks so much! :DDD and I totally agree with yours. ;) ;)