Jaime: If I were a woman, I’d be Cersei.
Cersei: If I were a man, I’d be Jaime.
False.
читать дальшеOne of my life philosophies is that a person is born with a personality. That personality is shaped and altered by environment, family, and the like, but I do believe that at people’s core, there is a personality ingrained in their minds from the start. Cersei was born with ambition, while Jaime was born with… the opposite of ambition, I guess. Not laziness, per say. Just a general acceptance for life. He more or less does whatever people tell him and doesn’t try to change anyone’s opinion, and moving past that malleable quality is a major part of his character arc.
Cersei: Join the Kingsguard.
Jaime: I’m not -
Cersei: [sexes into oblivion]
Jaime: Okay.
Tywin: Tell Tyrion Tysha is a whore.
Jaime: I don’t -
Tywin: [glares]
Jaime: Okay.
Eddard: You’re a bad person.
Jaime: I just -
Eddard: [judges]
Jaime: Okay.
People say that Jaime and Cersei are mirror images of each other. From birth, the twins convinced themselves that this was fact: Jaime says that if he were a woman, he’d be Cersei, and Cersei says that if she were a man, she’d be Jaime. This is often interpreted as an undeniable truth. Forget “unreliable narrators” - Jaime and Cersei say it’s so, so it is.
I don’t doubt that they believe it; I just don’t think it’s true. Not only are they not mirror images of each other, but they never were. Cersei was always the “daring” one - see her petting the lions at Casterly Rock. She always wanted to be the boss, the head honcho, el numero uno, Miss Big, the Godfather… Lord of the Rings. The Bourne Identity. Taxi Driver. Jaws.
Jaime, on the other hand, just did as he was supposed to do. It was his duty to become a knight, so he became one. The only reason he joined the Kingsguard was Cersei. If Tywin had discovered the plot, I honestly don’t think Jaime would have gone through with it. But because there was no one to say “no”, he did, which is really the first thing you need to know about Jaime. Who would give up an entire inheritance - an entire life, really - just to see a certain person every day? Someone with no true life of his own. Jaime never bothered finding his own place in the world because he was only focused on Cersei. Cersei is the opposite - she thought about what she planned on becoming and doing, took the necessary steps to do so, etc. Jaime revolves around love, Cersei revolves around power.
If Cersei is wildfire, then pre-ASOS Jaime was wood. She wants to burn over everybody, he was fine with just sitting there. That’s just who they are. They think that if they were gender-swapped, they would be each other. In reality, I think that if Jaime were born a girl and Cersei a boy, girl!Jaime would have been an agreeable little lady like Sansa and boy!Cersei would have been a miniature Tywin. I’m not saying the incest wouldn’t still have happened. I just think that their respective personalities would have been fundamentally the same regardless of gender. When they were little, they aren’t described as acting the same, just looking the same. Jaime didn’t reach into the lion’s cage, Cersei did. Cersei wasn’t kind to Tyrion, Jaime was. This is before Jaime got a sword and Cersei was stitched into corsets. Even when gender roles weren’t being forced upon them, they were still different people.
The first time Jaime starts doing things for himself - really for himself - is in ASOS, and the reason for it is simple: He has no motivation or inclination to obey anyone else. He and Cersei have broken up, he’s fallen out with Tywin, and the king is a little boy who hardly ever gives orders. When Jaime’s hand was cut off, a part of his personality was cut off. He stopped being wood and started being… something less like wood. A leaf? I don’t really know. The point is, he stands up to his father and sister and starts being his own person.
Cersei, meanwhile, grows up to be repressed because of her gender. If she had been born a boy, her ambition would have been nurtured by Tywin and she would probably have turned out “better” in regards to her paranoia and short-sightedness. But because she was a girl, Tywin tried to force these traits into Jaime, which didn’t work because Jaime was not like that. He and Cersei were completely different, and Cersei thought it was just because no one paid attention to her due to her woman-ness. Cersei doesn’t want to believe that she and Jaime aren’t mirrors because that would mean accepting that she and her twin are two different people, not extensions of each other. Jaime doesn’t want to believe it either, and for similar reasons.
tl;dr: Jaime and Cersei are not, were never, and never will be the same person, and if you say that hating Cersei and loving Jaime are signs of misogyny because they are mirror images of each other, then I say false.
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