Gwendoline Christie on a potential Brienne and Tormund romance: “Yeah, maybe he has a chance"
Aux Features Game of Thrones
[Spoilers for Game Of Thrones season eight, episode six.]
Of the many fairly unsatisfying storyline resolutions offered up in the final season of Game of Thrones, Brienne of Tarth’s is hardly the most vexing. At the very least, Brienne wound up with a solid job offer down in King’s Landing. Still, despite Brienne’s bright career prospects in what has to be an otherwise pretty rough job market in Westeros these days, some fans were upset with the way the new Lord Commander of the Kingsguard was done dirty by Jaime Lannister. Could Tormund Giantsbane—noted Brienne-admirer—have a shot at helping to heal that broken heart, they wondered?
Brienne-Tormund ‘shippers might just be in luck. IndieWire has a fun new interview with Gwendoline Christie, in which the actress says of Tormund’s admiration, “Yeah, maybe he has a chance.”
Naturally, there would be some hurdles to clear for this kind of relationship to have a shot. Unless the two are willing to have a long-distance relationship via raven, Tormund better be prepared to move his ass down south, since Brienne is obviously not giving up her career for any man. Christie says Brienne would certainly make Tormund put in the effort, and also he would be wise to maybe never tell that weird story about giant’s milk ever again.
“She would really make him work,” said Christie. “I mean, you know, she’s landed her dream job. Also, the story about the giant’s milk might take a little bit of getting over. But maybe not.”
As for Jaime Lannister, who gave up a genuinely good thing to go get hit in the head with a bunch of rocks, Christie said Brienne will mourn, as always, soldier on.
I think writing is Brienne’s way of not only of honoring someone that she loved, but of honoring her own love — the relevance of the experience that she had with someone where she saw a different side to this human being that other people didn’t and wanting to preserve that… And she’s taking a real pride in overcoming her own feelings of pain and anger and all of the complexity, to do the right thing, to feel good about that, and then to go back to work as Commander of the Kingsguard and the Small Council to do that. She carries on.
Check out the rest of the interview over at IndieWire for Christie’s thoughts on the final season, her pride in calling that whole “Bran is king” thing, and her explanation as to why Brienne didn’t start writing her own entry in The Book of Brothers.
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38 Comments
Pretty sure that the rotting roasted corpse of the Hound has a better shot.
I could ship it.
Is it rotting? Could be too burnt.
And in the eventual sequel series, their tall redhead daughter can be played by Karen Gillan. Make this happen, Hollywood dream factory!
You have my woman, Southlanders!!
““Yeah, maybe he has a chance.””
I mean yeah, sure, I guess…if you haven’t watched the show at all.
Tormund better be prepared to move his ass down south, since Brienne is obviously not giving up her career for any man.I know the show gave up on caring, but her new job also prevents her from marrying or having children.
I might have disliked this season of GoT more if my favourite character wasnt Brienne. I thought it was fine. And while I did want Brienne and Jaime to end up together I would much rather Brienne be a badass in the end than anything else.
Honestly, I never liked the idea of Brienne and Jamie together. I liked to think that these two had a love for one another that was not based on romance or sexual attraction, but rather upon mutual respect and admiration. One’s soulmate does not necessarily need to be one’s romantic partner.I know a lot of people hated that Jamie went back to Cersie, she was his queen, his sister, and the mother of his children. How could he leave her to die alone?Too bad she didn’t get to make gigantic babies with Tormund but htat’s not what she wanted so…
I think Jaime and Brienne should have had sex, and had it be totally awful and awkward (for Jaime because it’s not Cersei, for Brienne because she’s larger than Jaime and also has no experience with this), and they’re both like, yeah, this was a mistake, let’s just be friends bound by honor and shared experience.
And then Brienne leaves to find Podrick to learn how it really gets done.
Given that Jamie’s seemingly only relationship with a woman was his incestual romance with his twin sister, I might give him a pass on misinterpreting the feelings he had for Brienne. What he mistook as non-incestual mutual respect for a woman probably felt so foreign to him that he probably just assumed he was supposed to have sex with her.
One of the very few places where women have a leg up in society is that our society places no stigma on women being in intense, yet completely non-sexual relationships. Say what you will about the realism of Sex and the City, but I have yet to hear a single person insist that the only way those women could have that kind of friendship is if they’re all secretly rocking each other’s world. They’re four friends who eat ridiculously large amounts of calories for their figures together, and jaw about their problems, and everyone’s okay with that.But Frodo and Sam? Hell, they can’t even share a fierce hug with each other after fighting all the way to Mordor without fan theories obsessing about their sexuality. We just can’t envision a relationship with a man without sex getting in the way.Which is part and parcel about what I like so much about the Jaime and Brienne relationship of the books. It’s . . . ambiguous whether they have any serious romantic intentions to one another. But it’s also clear that their relationship runs far deeper than anything sexual. It’s not like anything I’ve seen since maybe Picard and Guinan. What’s clear is that they get each other, they care deeply about one another, and they enjoy themselves best when around each other, because each one brings out the other’s best selves. Jaime does his only truly selfless acts when he’s around Brienne, and Brienne is at her shrewdest and most astute around Jaime. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the mutual respect.
To say it less eloquently…If there is a dick in the scenario, people assume that it must be used at some point.
Chekhov’s Penis
So what you’re saying is, it’s Chekhov’s dick…
A case of Chekhov’s Gun.
I now see I was the 3rd to make that joke.Chekhov’s Gonad! That’s the one I should’ve gone with.
That’s a really good point. Frodo and Sam, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Kirk and Spock, on and on.
A good example of a man and woman having a relationship deeper than the sexual on TV is Sherlock and Watson in ‘Elementary’. The final episode of the most recent series put it beautifully: “We’re not partners. We’re two people who love each other. We always have been.”
I’ve never read the books or seen that other show, but have a star anyway.
Edit: Damnit, Kinja!
I wished they kept it platonic as well, for multiple reasons. As you note, they seemed to have a deep relationship that was actually built on mutual respect. It’s rare that that type of relationship is depicted between a man and woman in TV and film and the writers had to ruin it by making it sexual. Also, it’s just a bit much to have two major women characters lose their virginity in the span of a couple episodes. Like everything this season, it was rushed. That’s a big part of why Jaime’s sudden change of heart feels all that much more sudden. I’m sure you could make Jaime and Brienne being together and then Jaime leaving her work… with more than about maybe ten minutes of combined screen time. We never even see them together in any meaningful way, just sleeping in the same bed in a couple short scenes, so we never even see how much this coupling does (or doesn’t) mean to either of them before Jaime suddenly ditches out. It needed some breathing room to have more impact. It doesn’t help that it’s Sansa’s little verbal jab that suddenly makes the obvious dawn on him. All of Dany’s armies are heading south to defeat Cersei. Are we supposed to assume that it never occurred to Jaime, before Sansa said anything to him, that Cersei was in serious danger? It was all just so clumsy and, in the end, really did nothing to bring either character’s arcs forward in any interesting way.
I think he could keep telling his tall tales. She would come around and find those endearing. He just needs to clean up in public; public sour-milk slurping – no. In private now and then – well… (sigh) as long as they’re both drinking. On a weekend. But the pants-shitting! That has to stop.
So she’s SAYING there’s a chaaaance!!!
But Kingsguard members take abow of celibacy, dont they?**Not that it stopped members before, but Brienne is kind of a stickler for the rules
If the season hadn’t been so horribly compressed, they could even have taken time to show how Bran changed some of the traditions as the new king. “Yeah, the celibacy thing is idiotic. Bone whoever you want.”
THRONE BOOOOOOONE
Game of Boners
I’m actually kind of curious on the exact wording of their vows.If it says they can’t marry and must stay celibate, that’s kind of a dead end, but if the Kingsguard ran under the idea that no women would join their ranks though, it is possible it says they can’t take a wife and can’t father children.Anyone got the books on hand to check for a loophole?
I think they cant marry, have lands and serve for life; hence why Tywin lannister was mad at Jaime joining the KG because it robbed him of his rightful heir to Casterly Rock, and why he was gambling on Jaime abandoning the KG in exchange for Tyrion to be pardoned, so he would force him to marry and take over Casterly Rick.
Their oath is to take no wife, shire no children, own no lands, that doesn’t mean they can’t frequent brothels or have random sex with whoever. Just remember where Arya found Meryn Trant and what kind of things that guy was doing.
I assume Brienne isn’t writing her own entry in the Book of Brothers because only a narcissistic git would do such. For a character who’s all about honor, duty and service writing about her own deeds would diminish them.
Danerys can “friendzone” Jorah all the live long day, sure he’ll be a wonderful husband but she has options are far as the eyes can see. Brienne should’ve just taken the guy that was into her instead of aiming for a gay guy with a beautiful wife and a man in love with his sister
I’m still pulling for her and Hyle Hunt
Tormund respected her for being a warrior and thought she was attractive to boot.
They could have had them fighting side-by-side instead of reducing her character to a sobbing, pleading mess twenty minutes after she got the D from drunk, trick-ass Jaime and ending up the way she did. After Jaime left, Brienne should’ve been saying, “Is the wildling fellow with the beard still here?” and hit that like the Night King hit Hardhome.
That Brienne’s last scene in the show was writing about Jaime in The White Book was a disservice to her character. If she wasn’t going to go Mean Girls, it would have been better if she’d just left the page blank instead of having her validate Jaime as a “good man” in the pages of history. (I still can’t believe they gave Jaime and Cersei the tragic romantic ending treatment. JFC.)
There is something to be said for a partner who doesn’t have to come around over the course of several ‘effing years to appreciating your outstanding qualities.