Wow. If you watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones you might be wondering just how the Lannisters could ever come back from the kind of burn that Lady Olenna Tyrell put on them this past Sunday. Everyone knew the old woman was devious and a little twisted, but delivering the news that she did to Jamie Lannister and in that fashion was brutal even by her standards. If you haven’t watched the episode then you might want to stop reading now because there are spoilers ahead. If you’ve watched it though or are at least intrigued, then here we go.
Olenna is the MVP of the Game of Thrones for a very good reason, and here’s why.
She has little if any fear of the Lannisters.
Some folks get old and they know their final days are coming. This tends to shield them in a way from fearing anything other than the final check out. And once they’re no longer afraid of death, then the only fear remaining might be reserved for their younger counterparts, such as children and grandchildren. Lady Olenna no longer had to worry over that issue by the time her final day had come. Her one hope for the future, Margaery, had already been snuffed out courtesy of Cersei. But the trick there is that Cersei had no idea yet that Olenna had anything to do with the death of Margaery’s husband, Joffrey, son to both Cersei and Jamie.
She reveals the truth in the most brutal way possible.
As she’s staring down the end she still has no fear of Jamie Lannister. He is a puppet in her eyes being held by the fingers of a cruel and capricious woman that has no real love for him. In fact one might almost say that she pities him. But she has no mercy when she reveals that it was she that killed Joffrey. Olenna even goes so far as to insult the memory of the boy-king by calling him a rather unflattering word that obviously makes Jamie wish to reconsider his attempt to give her a calm and peaceful sendoff. You can actually see his jaw tighten when she reveals just what she did, and why. Would Cersei have been so calm?
She tricks Jamie into giving her a peaceful death.
For all the things he’s done and all the things he’s become Jamie still has some honor left to him, and a little decency. In fact it’s safe to say that he’s actually one of the more sensible characters in the series now. Perhaps it’s the loss of his hand or the things he’s seen and had to do that changed him, but the old Jamie would have run Olenna through right after she revealed her secret. But as of now, he realizes that he betrayed his brother whom he favored, followed Cersei on a murderous spree that has claimed much of Westeros, and been little better than the puppet Olenna claims him to be. She even managed to pull a string or two of her own in garnering an easier death than she might have deserved. No doubt enraged by her admission Jamie could have easily run her through before the poison took hold, but he restrained himself. Walking away was perhaps the best thing he could have done at that point, but it was no less humiliating.
When you play the Game of Thrones winning and losing aren’t the only goals. Sometimes humiliation and disgrace are the greatest tools in anyone’s arsenal.
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