I’m reading through racefortheironthrone’s archives at the moment, and he took this ask earlier this month:
Anonymous asked: While Jaime seems to genuinely regret not being able to save Elia & her children (“I never thought he would hurt them!”), why is it that he never seems to feel any real regret to pushing Bran off the tower? He barely even thinks about it in his monologues.
Because direct personal culpability is worse than accidental neglect.
I don’t disagree with this, but I want to expand on it.
Where Elia and her children are concerned, there was no conflict of interest for Jaime. He could only be in one place at a time, he couldn’t predict how much damage his father’s forces would do in the Sack, and there are no obstacles for him feeling shitty about what was done to them. It’s not like he would have put anyone dear to him in danger by looking out for the princess and her children.
The context around him pushing Bran is very different.
When Bran caught Jaime and Cersei in the act, it wasn’t just embarrassing; it created a situation in which there was a very strong risk of both the twins, all three of their children, and possibly the rest of their family being executed. Jaime didn’t push Bran simply so he could get back to his sexytimes with his sister; he did it to keep his own three children alive. This is not a justification, but from Jaime’s position, he had no better options.
Now the Lannisters are falling apart under the weight of their own dysfunctions, but at this stage in the books, two of Cersei’s children are still alive. As long as Jaime still has a living Tommen and Myrcella to think about, he will not be willing to reflect on the horror of pushing Bran Stark out the window. As long as even one of those kids is still alive, the reason for Jaime to try to kill Bran is still applicable. Only when all three of the children are dead (and you know they’re fucked sideways) will Jaime be able to think about the implications of his trying to kill an innocent child.
ETA: Found this last night in the scene where Cersei approaches Jaime in the Lord Commander’s chamber.
“I’m not ashamed of loving you, only of the things I’ve done to hide it. That boy at Winterfell…”
The answer to the question of “Why doesn’t Jaime ever think about Bran?” is…he DOES think about what he did to Bran, and he feels appropriately ashamed. As to why he doesn’t ruminate on it at greater length…perhaps GRRM thinks we wouldn’t be learning anything new from seeing Jaime beat himself up over that incident.
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