jaime lannister's story was never a redemption arc. he never needed redeeming. it comes across as a redemption arc because of unreliable narrators and unclear intentions before we meet him as a character

which gives a reader impression of "bad guy now... good?" but the nuance of it, the kind of narrative bait-and-switch, is that he was... literally never a bad guy. and the only arguably evil thing he did was lie to tyrion

jamie's arc is absolutely one of TRANSFORMATION and in many ways follows the same trajectory of redemption arcs but in terms of self-discovery and a kind of philosophical "waking up"

BTW I'm not saying it's good to try to kill kids, but protecting your family from very certainly being executed for treason is like probably the one situation where I'd say yeah I see where you're coming from my g

and. also. incest is evil but jaime is the victim of a manipulative narcissist who was molesting babies and murdering young girls as a child so I'll let him off that too!

I mean my purpose isn't really to make jaime some innocent baby who isn't accountable for anything. all of grrm's protagonists are multifaceted and flawed. they do bad things with good intentions and good things with bad intentions. my point is just that jaime was never a villain

Nor Was He Ever "As Bad As Cersei"

just so you know I'm muting this thread because idc about the chorus of whinging twincests who "won" and yet still only exist to broadcast their lack of basic reading comprehension and inability to read povs that aren't cersei's. go make some content for your dead fandom