GRRM Built a Masterpiece of a Character — HBO Reduced Him to Mush. Can The Winds of Winter Redeem Him?
Game of Thrones delivered plenty of heartbreak, but the twist that still stings isn’t Daenerys’ fall—it’s Jaime Lannister’s Season 8 dash back to Cersei in Episode 5, a choice that crushed fan hopes and reignited the finale backlash.
Jaime Lannister had one of TV's great long games brewing... until the show slammed the brakes in the final stretch. If you felt whiplash watching his Season 8 decision, you were not alone. The good news: the books might steer him somewhere very different.
Why Jaime's TV ending still stings
Across eight seasons, Ser Jaime of House Lannister (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) went from infamous Kingslayer to a guy who might actually do the right thing, even if it wrecked him. He was never a clean-cut hero or a cartoon villain. Before the pilot even aired, his baggage was already overflowing: he pushed Bran Stark out a window, and he was sleeping with his sister, Cersei. He lived with the stain of killing the Mad King, which saved the people of King's Landing but branded him an Oathbreaker for life.
The show kept nudging him toward redemption. His bond with Brienne of Tarth, that raw bathtub confession, the glimpses of a man who wanted to be better — all of it felt like a slow, hard-earned pivot away from Cersei.
Then came the fifth episode of the final season. Jaime rides back to King's Landing, tries to pull Cersei out of the collapsing Red Keep, realizes they are trapped, and dies holding her as the walls come down. It is a choice that reads like the series hit the undo button on his arc — eight seasons of growth, then back to square one. Anticlimactic is putting it politely.
The books left him in a very different place
In George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons, Jaime's story ends on a cliffhanger in the riverlands. A woman shows up — widely believed to be Brienne — and he vanishes with her. That is the final beat before The Winds of Winter, which means his path on the page is still wide open and can veer hard away from what the show did.
Martin has repeatedly framed Jaime's journey around big themes like redemption and forgiveness. As he told Rolling Stone:
"One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption."
Point is, the author seems very interested in paying off that struggle, not tossing it for one rash choice.
So where could Winds of Winter take him?
There is plenty of room to land Jaime's story in a way that actually wrestles with who he has been versus who he wants to be — not just who he used to love. Given where the books left him, I would not be shocked if the redemption thread gets a real, earned ending this time, even if it costs him dearly along the way.
- TV show: Game of Thrones
- Showrunners: David Benioff & D.B. Weiss
- Based on: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire
- Original run: April 17, 2011 - May 19, 2019
- Rotten Tomatoes: 89% Tomatometer, 85% Audience Score
How do you think Martin closes Jaime's arc? Drop your take in the comments. If you want to revisit the show's version, Game of Thrones is currently streaming on HBO Max.