(Spoilers for GoT.)
Few characters in Game Of Thrones truly find redemption. If they’re monsters when we first meet them, they tend to stay that way. You don’t have much time to really redeem yourself when people are losing their heads and getting stabbed by shadows left and right.
One of the few exceptions to this is Jaime Lannister, although he doesn’t really seek redemption, since it’s kind of thrown at his feet along with a severed appendage. When we first meet Jaime, he’s an all-around dick, which is part of his charm. The series premiere ends with him pushing Bran Stark to what he presumed to be his death, the fallout of which triggers many of the events in the series. Jaime follows that up with killing Ned Stark’s man, Jory Cassel, and most likely would have killed Ned as well. Once he gets captured by Robb, he even murders his own cousin in a failed escape attempt. Catelyn then frees Jaime and sends him back to King’s Landing along with Brienne on the condition he’ll free Catelyn’s daughters Arya and Sansa. What follows is more of Jaime being an ass and trying to kill people, this time focused on Brienne.
It’s not until they’re both taken by Roose Bolton’s men that Jaime gets humbled by way of getting his sword hand chopped off. This shatters Jaime’s world because what fueled his behavior, other than the weird love he has for his sister, is the unflinching belief that he’s the most skilled blade in the room. He could throw shots at Ned, Robb, and everyone else, even when he’s near death, because he knew that he could either buy or slash his way out of anything. But without his right hand, he has nothing.
For once, he opens up to Brienne about what actually led to him becoming the Kingslayer. Sure, it doesn’t atone for all his prior actions, but by learning his motivations, we almost feel bad for this villainous figure. He doesn’t find redemption, but he’s redeemed in our eyes, at least in part.
After that, we see a different Jaime. We see a Jaime that jumps into a bear pit to save someone who couldn’t help him anymore. We see a Jaime that defies the crown and his father by freeing his doomed brother Tyrion. We see a Jaime that tasks Brienne with fulfilling the wishes of a dead woman. At the end of last season, Jaime even opens up to his daughter Myrcella and accepts his role as her father, a title he rejected for her whole life.
Is Jaime completely redeemed at this point? Not by a long shot. He’s still got plenty of flaws and commits terrible acts, most controversially in a fourth-season rape scene (that pretty much everyone agreed was rape despite comments to the contrary from cast and crew). And based on the trailer for season six, Jaime may be sinking back into his old ways — witnessing two of your children die might do that. But he’s certainly come a long way since we first saw him, and he just might find true redemption by the end of the series (which might be much closer than we thought).
