Jaime and Brienne's Big 'Game of Thrones' Moment Was a Long Time Coming
Game of Thrones Season Eight Episode Four Spoilers Ahead
Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth have had tons chemistry since they were first paired together way back in Game of Thrones Season Two, spawning a legion of shippers who just wanted to see the two fighters bone. And tonight, Jaime and Brienne shippers' dreams came true: After the celebratory, post-Night King victory feast at Winterfell, the two finally had sex.
The romance was a long time in the making. The pair bonded over the course of Seasons Two and Three, which found Brienne escorting Jaime as to King’s Landing as Catelyn Stark’s prisoner in hopes of trading him for Sansa, who was in turn the captive of Cersei. On the way, the two were both captured by Bolton men, and Jaime helped save Brienne when their captors nearly raped her, and later saved her once again when the Bolton soldiers force her to fight a bear for their amusement. Jaime, dogged by his reputation as a faithless Kingslayer, came to respect Brienne’s decency, loyalty, and adherence to to a moral code, while Brienne gradually came to regard Jaime as being more honorable than his monarch-killing reputation suggested.
The two went their separate ways in season four, and until Jaime arrived at Winterfell in the Season Eight premiere their intervening meetings were short and contentious, with Brienne allied with the Starks and Jaime loyal to Cersei. That all changed when Jaime abandoned his sister and King’s Landing to go to Winterfell and join the army of the living. They fought side by side throughout the Battle of Winterfell. It all culminated in Jaime and Brienne having sex in Brienne’s room after the newly-minted knight revealed in post-battle drinking game that she was a virgin.
But though their pairing is years in the making, the execution was lacking. The first half of Episode Four was wall-to-wall fan service-Tormund chugging pints of ale, Sansa and the Hound reuniting, Gendry getting down on one knee to propose to Arya. In the context of the episode, Jaime and Brienne’s romance feels less like well-earned character development and more like a cheap thill. Cheap though it may have been, the thrill was short-lived-Jaime departed for King’s Landing at the end of the episode in a bid to save Cersei from Daenerys and her army-a move that left Brienne heartbroken. Gwendoline Christie (who plays Brienne) told EW "I was so upset."
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