Game of Thrones season 7: What’s the ideal Jaime Lannister endgame?

Game of Thrones season 7 premieres on HBO Sunday night, and few characters have the mystery around them of Jaime Lannister. Where in the world does he go from here? His sister Cersei is now Queen of Westeros, and his feelings for her over the years are absolutely well-documented. Yet, at the same time it’s also been very well-documented that he has allegiances and friendships elsewhere. We don’t think that he’s purely evil, but he has a significant amount of darkness in his soul. He’s also surprisingly affected emotionally by some of the characters that he’s with. For example, when he was with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), we saw a much softer soul, and a side of the man that we didn’t see with Lena Headey’s character.

With this in mind, there is a significant amount of flux that we could see for Jaime when season 7 starts airing on Sunday night.

If he stays with Cersei – It’s probably not great news for his soul. He’ll probably have some loyalty to her, and that may be in part due to familiarity. How many other places does have to go? His children are dead, Brienne is up North, and Tyrion currently isn’t there. Maybe once he turns up things could be difficult, but the Kingslayer may relish on some level the new-found sense of power that he has. He doesn’t have to worry about expectations that come with his name when he’s elevated so high on the pecking order; who would dare challenge him at this point?

If Tyrion finds him in time… We could easily see Jaime becoming an ally of sorts to Daenerys, or at least a conduit. He could be a bridge between King’s Landing and where she resides at Dragonstone. We don’t think Jaime is the sort of cause the mass destruction that his sister did; he and Tyrion are far from buddy-buddy, but he’s got a better shot of communicating with Peter Dinklage’s character than Cersei ever does.

Is there a chance for a Brienne reunion? – If she’s sent down to King’s Landing, it’s absolutely possible and something that fans would love to see. Yet, the big challenge is that they are on different sides now. They don’t have all that much to discuss anymore that won’t cause problems elsewhere on the metaphorical chessboard, and that is something that may be a focal point of any discussions they do have.

Also, there’s the whole issue of Tormund. For all of the Brienne ‘shippers that are out there, there may be some of them that are more about this pairing at this point. Geographically, we definitely understand why that is the case.

Could Jaime die? – Absolutely we could see him being the sort of person whose death sends Cersei even further over the edge; or, maybe he joins the other side and dies as one final move to get redemption. Given that he’s a character who is so hard to pin down, it’s harder to imagine him surviving the series that some other characters.

In the end, there is one word to describe Jaime now and forever: “Conflicted.” We don’t see that changing anytime in the near future.

What do you think is Jaime Lannister’s endgame?

Be sure to share some further thoughts on that subject now in the attached comments! Meanwhile, remember that we’ve got some other information / Game of Thrones Endgame pieces over at the link here. (Photo: HBO.)