So, Brienne of Tarth. One of my personal favourite characters in the books, one of my least favourite characters recently in the adaptation. @cynicalclassicist asked me recently if I considered book!Brienne and show!Brienne to be opposites.

Short answer, no.

Slightly less short answer, just because several key aspects of book!Brienne’s character have been removed or minimised to make show!Brienne more “badass” doesn’t make them opposites, per se.

Long answer below a cut, because let me quote extensively about book!Brienne she’s awesome, okay. No season six spoilers.

Young and Naive

When we first meet book!Brienne, it’s through Catelyn’s eyes. Catelyn immediately notes two things about her - her plain features and her youth.

Brienne’s eyes were large and very blue, a young girl’s eyes, trusting and guileless…

- Catelyn II, ACoK

When she feels strong emotion, she reacts in very unguarded ways, as well, Catelyn notes, and in some respects does not handle her crush on Renly very well at all.

Brienne was on her feet as well. “Your Grace, give me but a moment to don my mail. You should not be without protection.” King Renly smiled. “If I am not safe in the heart of Lord Caswell’s castle, with my own host around me, one sword will make no matter…not even your sword, Brienne. Sit and eat. If I have need of you, I’ll send for you.” His words seemed to strike the girl harder than any blow she’d taken that afternoon. “As you will, Your Grace.” Brienne sat, eyes downcast.

- Catelyn II, ACoK

Brienne dropped to her knees. “If I must part from Your Grace, allow me the honour of arming you for battle.” Catelyn heard someone snigger behind her. She loves him, poor thing, she thought sadly. She’d play his squire just to touch him, and never care how great a fool they think her.

- Catelyn III, ACoK

We find out in AFFC why Brienne was so attached to Renly, and like so much else about her material in that book, it’s heartbreaking.

Her father welcomed [Renly] with a feast and commanded her to attend; elsewise she would have hidden in her room like some wounded beast. She had been no older than Sansa, more afraid of sniggers than of swords. They will know about the rose, she told Lord Selwyn, they will laugh at me. But Lord Selwyn would not relent. And Renly Baratheon had shown her every courtesy, as if she were a proper maid, and pretty. He even danced with her, and in his arms she’d felt graceful, and her feet had floated across the floor. From that day forth she wanted only to be close to Lord Renly, to serve him and protect him.

- Brienne I, AFFC

Poor thing. There’s a reason Catelyn thinks of Brienne as a girl, rather than a woman. And when she’s confronted with deadly violence, not tourney violence, not the death of animals:

[Renly] had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood game gushing out of his throat. “Your Gr- no!” cried Brienne the Blue, sounding as scared as any little girl.

- Catelyn IV, ACoK

Show!Brienne is a good ten years older than her book counterpart, one of the most significant age-ups in the adaptation. There’s quite a difference between a eighteen-year-old girl and a woman of nearly thirty. Renly was book!Brienne’s first crush, and it really shows in ACoK - while this may be true of show!Brienne as well, she’s also clearly past the sheer awkwardness of that first crush stage.

The show invented a few scenes for Brienne to express to others how she felt about Renly, but they don’t go into why she felt so strongly about Renly, not in the emotional detail of a little girl so starved for positive feedback and even common courtesy that even the slightest demonstration of it affected her deeply. Rather, the show’s invented scene between Brienne and Margaery in 4.01 (“Two Swords”) are pretty much a reaffirmation of “we’re all sorry Renly’s dead.”

The relevant backstory for show!Brienne is given in 5.03 (“High Sparrow”).

BRIENNE: When I was a girl my father held a ball. I’m his only living child, so he wanted to make a good match for me. He invited dozens of young lords to Tarth. I didn’t want to go, but he dragged me to the ballroom. And it was wonderful. None of the boys noticed how mulish and tall I was. They shoved each other and threatened to duel when they thought it was their turn to dance. They whispered in my ear how they wanted to marry me and take me back to their castles. My father smiled at me and I smiled at him. I’d never been so happy. ’Til I saw a few of the boys sniggering. And then they all started to laugh. They couldn’t keep the game going any longer. They were toying with me. Brienne the Beauty, they called me. Great joke. And I realised I was the ugliest girl alive. A great lumbering beast. I tried to run away, but Renly Baratheon took me in his arms. Don’t let them see your tears, he told me. They’re nasty little shits, and nasty little shits aren’t worth crying over. He danced with me and none of the other boys could say a word. Renly was the king’s brother, after all. […] He didn’t love me, he didn’t want me, he danced with me because he was kind and didn’t want to see me hurt. He saved me from being a joke. From that day until his last day. And I couldn’t save him in return.

Show!Renly characterisation strikes again, turning the common courtesy (not something book!Brienne commonly experienced) he showed to Brienne in the books into an active anti-bullying stance in the show. It also downplays what book!Brienne suffered as a child; she’d already suffered years of being told, repeatedly, that she was ugly and stupid, compounded by years more afterwards, because book!Brienne really is ugly, and not Gwendoline Christie with short hair and bruise makeup. It’s a pale imitation of the original story.

Book!Brienne is also unguarded in other matters - the common factor is strong emotion. When something matters to Brienne, it quickly becomes clear just how young and naive she is, and how deeply she feels it.

“[Tyrion’s] wife?” Brienne said, appalled. “But…he swore, before the whole court, in sight of gods and men…” She is such an innocent. Jaime was almost as surprised, if truth be told, but he hid it better.

- Jaime V, ASoS

In spite of this very vulnerable core, or because of it, book!Brienne is also guarded and suspicious. Can’t blame her for that, she’s had cruddy experiences with just about everyone she’s met ever. (“Freakish was the word she had heard all her life. […] She did not need to be reminded of any of that.” Brienne I, AFFC) It’s the hard outer surface that made it to the show.

Chronologically, we get the first instance from Brienne’s oft-mentioned septa, Septa Roelle.

I was not always wary, she might have shouted down at Crabb. When I was a little girl I believed that all men were as noble as my father. Even the men who told her what a pretty girl she was, how tall and bright and clever, how graceful when she danced. It was Septa Roelle who had lifted the scales from her eyes. “They only say those things to win your lord father’s favour,” the woman had said. “You’ll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.”

- Brienne IV, AFFC

Then comes everything at Highgarden, at the start of the War of Five Kings.

Why are you being kind to me? she wanted to scream, every time some strange knight paid her a compliment. What do you want? Randyll Tarly solved the mystery the day he sent two of his men-at-arms to summon her to his pavilion. His young son Dickon had overheard four knights laughing as they saddled up their horses, and had told his lord father what they said. They had a wager.

- Brienne III, AFFC

By the time we get to ACoK, her defenses are well and truly up.

There are walls around this one higher than Winterfell’s.

- Catelyn V, ACoK

Brienne seemed to have a keen eye for the dangers, though, and always seemed to find the channel. When Jaime complimented her on her knowledge of the river, she looked at him suspiciously and said, “I do not know the river. Tarth is an island. I learned to manage oars and sail before I ever learned to ride a horse.”

- Jaime I, ASoS

To be fair, Jaime hadn’t exactly been free with the compliments prior to that point, but she’s still clearly used to being insulted, and finds it far easier to believe Jaime means to insult her than compliment her. We see the same in the infamous bath scene between the two in Harrenhal.

“That was unworthy,” he mumbled. “I’m a maimed man, and bitter. Forgive me, wench. You protected me as well as any man could have, and better than most.” She wrapped her nakedness in a towel. “Do you mock me?”

- Jaime V, ASoS

When she is at last convinced that Jaime’s more than she initially dismissed him as, she immediately starts displaying the same awkwardness towards his compliments as she did to Catelyn and Renly.

“Blue is a good colour on you, my lady,” Jaime observed. “It goes well with your eyes.” […] Brienne looked down at herself, flustered. […] She lingered by the door, as if she meant to flee at any second.

- Jaime IX, ASoS

And more importantly:

“You said I had honour…”

- Jaime IX, ASoS

The show’s version of the scene is good, dramatically speaking, presuming a woman who isn’t nearly so insecure as book!Brienne. Show!Brienne is overwhelmed by the expense and knightly nature of the gifts given to her, but since Jaime does not give her a sincere compliment on her appearance nor is Brienne’s own honour mentioned, we just can’t have the same character with the same concerns.

Book!Brienne is so very hurt. Her suspicion and hostility are clearly defense mechanisms born from tons of abuse. But there is also clearly a lot of emotion there. She’s a kind woman, and the good opinion of others still matters to her.





Unattractive

Aside from being young and inexperienced, book!Brienne is also not conventionally attractive. Not even close. This affects everything. Her gender presentation, how people react to her. It’s not nice. It’s not nice at all. The guardedness I talked about earlier, that’s something she learned to defend herself from people insulting her looks.

[Brienne] did not gown herself as a lady, but chose a knight’s finery instead…No garb could disguise her plainness, though; the huge freckled hands, the wide flat face, the thrust of her teeth. Out of armour, her body seemed ungainly, broad of hip and thick of limb, with hunched muscular shoulders but no bosom to speak of. And it was clear from her every action that Brienne knew it, and suffered for it.

- Catelyn II, ACoK

Brienne’s own [clothes] had been left behind during their flight, and she had been forced to clothe herself in odd bits of Ser Wendel’s old garb, since no one else in their party had garments large enough to fit her.

- Catelyn V, ACoK. (Note the similarity to the start of Jaime VII, ASoS. Finding Brienne clothes that fit is a recurring issue.)

Book!Brienne’s looks make it impossible for her to fit the designated noblewoman’s role comfortably. It’s not just that she carries a sword and knows how to use it. In that second quote there, from Catelyn V, remember that Wendel Manderly is not a small man. According to her society, she barely looks like a woman at all. She literally does not fit. As the quote about her relationship with Renly I cited above shows, her sole experience of being treated as “a proper maid” was so remarkable it motivated her to leave home and fight in a war. (Ironic!)

The commentary gets even worse when we see Brienne through a male character’s eyes, moving from Catelyn’s pity to Jaime’s contempt. (Though as Brienne herself noted in Brienne III, AFFC, “most women were just as cruel as men.” Catelyn’s pity and kindness were the exceptions.)

[Jaime] amused himself by picturing [Brienne] in one of Cersei’s silken gowns in place of her studded leather jerkin. As well dress a cow in silk as this one.

- Jaime I, ASoS

“Do you deny your sex? If so, unlace those breeches and show me.” He gave her an innocent smile. “I’d ask you to open your bodice, but from the look of you that wouldn’t prove much.”

- Jaime I, ASoS

He’s a real Prince Charming at this point, is Jaime. After he takes a bath with her, he does manage to summon up a scrap of empathy, though, when he sees her in a gown for the first time.

It was obvious at once that the gown had been cut for someone with slimmer arms, shorter legs, and a much fuller bosom. […] All in all, the garb made the wench look ludicrous. She has thicker shoulder than I do, and a bigger neck, Jaime thought. Small wonder she prefers to dress in mail. Pink was not a kind colour for her either. A dozen cruel japes leaped into his head, but for once he kept them there.

- Jaime V, ASoS

In Jaime III, he starts asking Brienne about the role she played in her father’s life:

“Do you have any siblings, my lady?” Brienne squinted at him suspiciously. “No. I was my father’s only child.” Jaime chuckled. “Son, you meant to say. Does he think of you as a son? You make a queer sort of daughter, to be sure.”

Wordless, she turned away from him, her knuckles tight on her sword hilt.

- Jaime II, ASoS

We see from that quote that Brienne is hurt by the implication she’s not a good daughter to Lord Selwyn.

Gwendoline Christie, on the other hand, is very beautiful, which can’t be disguised by severe makeup and clothing. It’s automatically that much harder to write Brienne, since her attitude to her own appearance is critical to the character, and so is the attitude of others to Brienne’s appearance.

But much as in the case with Arya, the writers elected not to include Brienne’s insecurity about her looks as an element of her characterisation. With that insecurity also went a critical part of GRRM’s point about internalised sexism; just because Brienne doesn’t even really want to be a lady doesn’t mean she doesn’t suffer when everyone else tells her what she should want and be. It doesn’t mean the insults don’t hurt.

“I thought Brienne the Beauty had no use for men.” There was a cruel edge to [Hyle Hunt’s] smile.

- Brienne III, AFFC

There’s this heartbreaking example from when Catelyn introduces Brienne to Edmure and his men:

“Brienne, I am honoured to acquaint you with my brother Ser Edmure Tully, heir to Riverrun. His steward Utherydes Wayn. Ser Robin Ryger and Ser Desmond Grell.” “Honoured,” said Ser Desmond. The others echoed him. The girl flushed, embarrassed even at this commonplace courtesy.

- Catelyn V, ACoK

Embarrassed to receive a proper introduction and a polite hello. And this:

“Did you sing for your father?” Catelyn asked. Brienne shook her head, staring down at her trencher as if to find some answer in the gravy.

“For Lord Renly?” The girl reddened. “Never, I…his fool, he made cruel japes sometimes, and I…”

- Catelyn VI, ACoK

She had not, not ever, though she had wanted…she had wanted…

- Brienne IV, AFFC

It’s not until later that we hear Brienne’s confession to the Elder Brother of the Quiet Isle about how she sees her place in her father’s life, as the Elder Brother urges her to return home.

“Perhaps they will bring your sword and shield to him, after you have fallen. Perhaps he will even hang them in his hall and look on them with pride…but if you were to ask him, I know he would tell you that he would sooner have a living daughter than a shattered shield.” “A daughter.” Brienne’s eyes filled with tears. “He deserves that. A daughter who could sing to him and grace his hall and bear him grandsons. He deserves a son too, a strong and gallant son to bring honour to his name. […] I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter.” All of it came pouring out of Brienne then, like black blood from a wound…

- Brienne VI, AFFC

Her chapters in AFFC make this even worse, as we see what Brienne’s life was like before ACoK. For instance, the entirety of her third betrothal went like so:

Humfrey Wagstaff was his name; a proud old man of five-and-sixty, with a nose like a hawk and a spotted head. The day they were betrothed, he warned Brienne that he would expect her to be a proper woman once they’d wed. “I will not have my lady wife cavorting about in man’s mail. On this you shall obey me, lest I be forced to chastise you.” She was sixteen and no stranger to a sword, but still shy despite her prowess in the yard. Yet somehow she had found the courage to tell Ser Humfrey that she would accept chastisement only from a man who could outfight her. The old knight purpled, but agreed to don his own armour to teach her a woman’s proper place. […] She broke Ser Humfrey’s collarbone, two ribs, and their betrothal.

- Brienne II, AFFC

So we see from that passage that it took a good deal of courage for Brienne to even fight in public, not all that long before she won Renly’s tourney at the start of ACoK. We also see that Lord Selwyn was pretty hard up finding offers for Brienne’s hand; Selwyn Tarth is reasonably wealthy, and Brienne his only living child. Yet he betrothed her to a man four times her age.

The show includes a scene where Brienne tells Arya something about how she learned to fight.

ARYA: Who taught you how to fight?

BRIENNE: My father.

ARYA: Mine never wanted to. He said fighting was for boys.

BRIENNE: Mine said the same. But I kept fighting the boys anyway, kept losing, and finally my father said, if you’re going to do it you might as well do it right.

- 4.10, “The Children”

This frames Brienne’s learning to fight as a case of “not like other girls,” where in the books there was a severe case of “cannot possibly be like other girls” in play. Nor is there anything like book!Brienne’s shame at not being either the daughter or the son she feels her father deserves.

Perhaps worst of all are book!Brienne’s interactions with raving misogynist Randyll Tarly.

“Go where you want and do as you will…but when you’re raped don’t look to me for justice. You will have earned it with your folly.”

- Brienne III, AFFC

“I have put an end to their sport [in “courting” Brienne],” Tarly told her. “Some of these…challengers…re less honourable than others, and the stakes were growing larger every day. It was only a matter of time before one of them decided to claim the prize by force.” “They were knights,” she said, stunned, “anointed knights.” “And honourable men. The blame is yours.” The accusation made her flinch. “I would never…my lord, I did nought to encourage them.” “Your being here encouraged them. If a woman will behave like a camp follower, she cannot object to being treated like one. A war host is no place for a maiden. If you have any regard for your virtue or the honour of your House, you will take off that mail, return home, and beg your father to find a husbamd for you.” “I came to fight,” she insisted. “To be a knight.” “The gods made men to fight, and women to bear children,” said Randyll Tarly. “A woman’s war is in the birthing bed.”

- Brienne III, AFFC

“Well, you’ve had your taste of blood. Proved whatever it is you meant to prove. It’s time you took off that mail and donned proper clothes again.”

- Brienne V, AFFC, in the face of Hyle Hunt telling Randyll that Brienne kicked serious ass in the previous chapter.

“As for you, my lady, it is said that your father is a good man. If so, I pity him. Some men are blessed with sons, some with daughters. No man deserves to be cursed with such as you. Live or die, Lady Brienne, do not return to Maidenpool whilst I rule here.” Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you.

- Brienne V, AFFC

Since Brienne’s AFFC plot was written out entirely, there’s no equivalent in the show.

Nevertheless, she finds satisfaction in the more masculine role she’s adopted.

“Fighting is better than this waiting,” Brienne said. “You don’t feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and horse, sometimes an axe. When you’re armoured it’s hard for anyone to hurt you.” “Knights die in battle,” Catelyn reminded her. Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. “As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.”

- Catelyn VI, ACoK

And, of course, there’s her reaction to her first betrothal, the one that was least emotionally wrenching, but nevertheless produced mixed feelings about its failure and her own assigned gender role.

Had [her betrothed] lived, they would have been wed within a year of her first flowering, and her whole life would have been different. She would not be here now, dressed in man’s mail and carrying a sword, hunting for a dead woman’s child. More like she’d be at Nightsong, swaddling a child of her own and nursing another. It was not a new thought for Brienne. It always made her feel a little sad, but a little relieved as well.

- Brienne III, AFFC

Show!Brienne, however, says bluntly, “I’m no lady,” (2.03, “What Is Dead May Never Die”) and that’s pretty much all we hear about Brienne and gender in the show. Nothing like mixed emotion, either.





A True Knight

But most importantly, book!Brienne is surprisingly gentle, sometimes very naive, and idealistic. She truly believes in the ideals of knighthood. “I will not serve with oathbreakers and murderers,” she tells Jaime in Jaime VII, ASoS, a declaration which leaves him wondering “why did you ever bother putting on a sword?” She throws two gold dragons into Nimble Dick’s grave, because it was the reward she promised him for helping her find “the fool,” and she keeps her promises. (Brienne IV, AFFC)

“The queen…she has a little girl of her own,” Brienne said awkwardly. “And sons too, of an age with yours. When she hears, perhaps she…she may take pity, and…” “Send my daughters back unharmed?” Catelyn smiled sadly. “There is a sweet innocence about you, child.”

- Catelyn VII, ACoK

No kidding. There speaks a woman who’s never met Cersei. But after hearing who knows what about Cersei, Brienne still tries to believe the best of her. She does the same with Robb, when Roose Bolton tells her and Jaime that Robb broke his word.

“This cannot be true,” Brienne said stubbornly. “King Robb was sworn to wed a Frey. He would never break faith, he-“ “His Grace is a boy of sixteen,” said Roose Bolton mildly.

- Jaime V, ASoS

Seriously, I love Brienne, but this just hurts. So many people tell her so many awful things about herself, and so many people have been terrible to her, and she still tries so hard not to be cynical. In both these cases, Brienne’s clearly trying to believe the best for Catelyn’s sake. “As stubbornly loyal of speech as she was of deed,” Jaime thinks of her that chapter. Jaime himself earns that loyalty over the course of ASoS, so that in AFFC, Brienne thinks:

Perhaps Sansa Stark was dead, beheaded for her part in King Joffrey’s death, buried in some unmarked grave. How better to conceal her murder than by sending some big stupid wench from Tarth to find her? Jaime would not do that. He was sincere. He gave me the sword, and called it Oathkeeper.

- Brienne I, AFFC

When Brienne and Jaime come across “a tree full of dead women,” Brienne’s first reaction is:

“This was not chivalrously done,” said Brienne, when they were close enough to see clearly. “No true knight would condone such wanton butchery.”

- Jaime I, ASoS

This is a notable incident because the show adapted this one. Well, they adapted the bit where Jaime and Brienne came across women hung for sleeping with Lannister soldiers. Instead of “no true knight would condone such wanton butchery,” show!Brienne kills the men who hung the women, deliberately giving the ringleader a slow and painful death. (2.10, “Valar Morghulis”) Rather than reject the wanton butchery, show!Brienne commits more in the name of vengeance.

The vengeance aspect comes back in force during season five. It’s peculiar, because though book!Brienne is torn between two options during AFFC, it’s between continuing her quest for Sansa and returning either to Tarth or to King’s Landing - not between Sansa and vengeance. In AFFC, avenging Renly is barely on Brienne’s mind. Sure, in ACoK she told Catelyn -

“I will kill him,” the tall homely girl declared. “With my lord’s own sword, I will kill him. I swear it. I swear it. I swear it.”

- Catelyn IV, ACoK

- But she lost Renly’s sword, and gained new priorities during ASoS. Throughout AFFC, in fact, Jaime replaces Renly in several of her dreams and daydreams. Show!Brienne, on the other hand, has the same priorities in 5.10 (“Mother’s Mercy”) as she did in 2.05. Character development!

BRIENNE: One day I will avenge King Renly.

POD: You said a shadow murdered him. How do you fight a shadow?

BRIENNE: A shadow with the face of Stannis Baratheon. I know it was Stannis. I know it in my heart. Stannis is a man, not a shadow. And a man can be killed.

- 5.03, “High Sparrow”

Finally, in 5.10 show!Brienne literally turns away from her mission to rescue Sansa in order to exact vengeance. It could not be further from book!Brienne’s attitude. As for her actual murder of Stannis, I don’t know what the writers were thinking. If they wanted to show Brienne as the righteous party, it was a bad move having her flat-out incorrectly call Renly the “rightful king,” and on that basis kill a man too wounded to stand upright, let alone fight back. I mean, killing already-wounded men is something that Ramsay was doing that episode. And if you had told me before season five that I would be drawing moral comparisons between Brienne of Tarth and Ramsay Snow, I would have laughed in your face.

Book!Brienne is a far kinder and gentler soul. Her first meeting with Pod recalls how she felt when first meeting Ser Ronnet.

“Puh-puh-Pod. My name. Puh-Pud Podrick. Puh-Payne.” She felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. She remembered a day at Evenfall, and a young knight with a rose in his hand. […] All she had to do was welcome him to her father’s castle. […] The two of them were of a height, but she could not look him in the eye, nor say the simple words her septa had taught her. Ser Ronnet. I welcome you to my lord father’s hall. It is good to look upon your face at last.

- Brienne II, AFFC

Her relationship with him is really, really sweet. She’s the one who draws out his backstory, when Pod’s been a character since ACoK, and while she doesn’t think much of his training, she puts the blame squarely where it belongs.

A squire he might be, in name at least, but the men he’d squired for had served him ill.

- Brienne III, AFFC

And then she set out to fix it. Straight away.

The boy was slow of speech but not of hand, she was pleased to learn. Though fearless and attentive, he was also underfed and skinny, and not near strong enough. […] “You may call yourself a squire,” she told him, “but I’ve seen pages half your age who could have beat you bloody. If you stay with me, you’ll go to sleep with blisters on your hands and bruises on your arms most every night, and you’ll be so stiff and sore you’ll hardly sleep. You don’t want that.” “I do,” the boy insisted. “I want that. The bruises and the blisters. I mean, I don’t, but I do. Ser. My lady.” So far he had been true to his word, and Brienne had been true to hers. Podrick had not complained.

- Brienne III, AFFC

When they’re captured by Lady Stoneheart’s men, she argues for Pod’s life, persistently.

“Ser,” the boy said miserably, when he saw Brienne. “My lady, I mean. Sorry.” “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Brienne turned to Lady Stoneheart. “Whatever treachery you think I may have done, my lady, Podrick and Ser Hyle were no part of it.”

- Brienne VIII, AFFC

This is where there’s a big divergence between book and show, and not one I’m at all fond of. Show!Brienne is as hostile to Pod as she was to Jaime, initially. “I don’t need a squire,” she snaps upon her introduction to him in 4.03 (“Oathkeeper”). Pretty different to the empathy and kindness she showed to him in the book. Pod is handed over to Brienne as a comic relief moment, and comic relief Pod stays for the next two seasons.

In the same vein, rather than helping Pod improve, show!Brienne sneers at Pod, “didn’t they teach you how to ride a horse?” and “have you ever cooked anything before?” (4.05, “The First of His Name”) “Do you even know what a squire is?” she asks in 5.01 (“The Wars To Come”), without adding any guidance.

In that light, this exchange in 5.03 (“High Sparrow”) is really quite insulting to the viewers’ intelligence. Not to mention dodgy educational practice that Brienne doesn’t use in the books. Book!Brienne, as mentioned, is actually supportive of Pod.

BRIENNE: I’m sorry I’m always snapping at you.

POD: If you didn’t snap at me, I wouldn’t learn anything.

Rather than try to get to know him, show!Brienne tries to drive him off, once in 4.05 and again in 5.01. (She eventually asks about his backstory in 5.03) And rather than be impressed by Pod’s fearlessness and attentiveness, or his careful attention to their horses’ wellbeing, Brienne is instead impressed by the fact that Pod killed a knight of the Kingsguard. Pod, in turn, is not dedicated to Brienne because she’s kind or brave or in any way an ideal knight, he’s proud to be her squire because she’s “the best fighter [he’s] ever seen.” (5.03)

There is similarity between book!Brienne and show!Brienne in how they approach interrogations, however, a rare point of thematic coincidence.

Silver would not get the truth from him, she sensed. Gold might, or it might not. Steel would be more certain. Brienne touched her dagger, then reached into her purse instead. She found a golden dragon and put it on the barrel.

- Brienne III, AFFC

Compare that to how she interacts with Hot Pie in 4.07 (“Mockingbird”), where she risks telling him the truth about who she’s looking for. Snappishly, rather than courteously as book!Brienne makes her inquiries, but risking trust and honesty.

When book!Brienne comes to the somewhat-rebuilt Inn at the Crossroads, she and Hyle Hunt discuss the many orphans there.

“I feel sorry for them. All of them have lost their mothers and fathers. Some have seen them slain.” Hunt rolled his eyes. “I forgot that I was talking to a woman. Your heart is as mushy as our septon’s porridge.”

- Brienne VII, AFFC

Show!Brienne, upon being informed that Tyrion dislikes being called “the Imp,” says to Pod, “well, he’s not here to complain about it, is he?” (5.03) Considerate and empathetic, show!Brienne in a nutshell.

Then there’s her attitude to killing. In the show, she’s a killer from the get-go, killing the men who mistakenly believe she murdered Renly in 2.05 (“The Ghost of Harrenhal”), as well as the aforementioned “tree of dead women” incident. In the book, it’s very different.

It may be that I will need to kill him, she told herself one night as she paced about the camp. The notion made her queasy.

- Brienne IV, AFFC

She kills several men over the course of AFFC. Notably, her kills are all outlaws, unambiguously evil men terrorising the local smallfolk, rather than anyone else’s guardsmen. She also feels awful about it. It gives her nightmares. The same is not true for her show counterpart, who gets into brutal fight scenes quite frequently. There’s this desire to show her as being “badass,” and the showrunners do tend to make “badass” equal “body count.”

Her commitment to her ideals impresses Jaime. (Not just her strength, though he finds that impressive too.)

“I want none of your thanks, Kingslayer. I swore an oath to bring you safe to King’s Landing.” “And you actually mean to keep it?” Jaime gave her his brightest smile. “Now there’s a wonder.”

- Jaime I, ASoS

We can also see just how seriously she takes the vows of knighthood in her interactions with him, again and again. Jaime, who doesn’t like her at this point, does not see her in flattering terms to put it mildly. I suspect it’s from this point in the story that we got the show’s interpretation of Brienne as stonefaced and perpetually hostile. She is hostile towards Jaime, where she was extremely awkward and easily embarrassed in front of Catelyn and Renly in ACoK.

“Why do I enrage you so? I’ve never done you harm that I know of.” “You’ve harmed others. Those you were sworn to protect. The weak, the innocent…” “…The king?” […] “Why did you take the oath?” she demanded. “Why don the white cloak if you meant to betray all it stood for?”

- Jaime II, ASoS

“It is a rare and precious gift to be a knight,” she said, “And even more so to be a knight of the Kingsguard. It is a gift given to few, a gift you scorned and soiled.” A gift you want desperately, wench, and can never have.

- Jaime II, ASoS

Her issue with Jaime is that he’s a bad knight. Her criticism, and her better example of the ideal he himself strove for as a teenager, start to bother him.

“Your oaths are worthless. You swore an oath to Aerys.” […] Jaime was tired. Tired of her suspicions, tired of her insults…

- Jaime III, ASoS

“I am tired of fighting with you. What say we make a truce?” “Truces are built on trust. Would you have me trust -“ “The Kingslayer, yes. The oathbreaker who murdered poor sad Aerys Targaryen.”

- Jaime V, ASoS

Now the show’s changes to Brienne’s story have something in common with the changes to Sansa’s story, in that the discussion of “true knights” has almost entirely been eliminated. The big change to her motivation of Jaime after he loses his hand hinges on this elimination; “Are you so craven?” is an appeal to knightly virtues, while “Like a bloody woman” is obviously misogyny, plain and simple.

Brienne’s first chapter in AFFC introduces a minor character, Ser Creighton Longbough, who exists to mansplain the concept of a true knight to her. “A true knight must defend the gentler sex,” he says, “A true knight is the only shield a maiden needs,” he tells the woman risking life and limb to find Sansa Stark. Later in the chapter, we get this line, as Ser Creighton (who boasts constantly of his fight against the knight of the red chicken) suggests travelling in a larger party for safety:

“I do not doubt Ser Shadrich’s valour, but he seems small, and three blades are better than one.” Four blades, thought Brienne, but she held her tongue.

- Brienne I, AFFC

The final lines of that chapter are very much a fuck you to Ser Creighton and his gendered notion of a true knight.

I am coming for you, Lady Sansa, she thought as she rode into the darkness. Be not afraid. I shall not rest until I’ve found you.

- Brienne I, AFFC

Likewise, Brienne’s fourth chapter includes an exchange of folklore, Brienne’s contribution to which features a magic sword and a knight unwilling to use it. The names aren’t subtle. The knight in Brienne’s story is “the Perfect Knight,” while his sword is the “Just Maid.” Yep. Thanks, GRRM, we got it.

“The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What’s the point o’having some magic sword if you don’t bloody well use it?” “Honour,” she said. “The point is honour.”

- Brienne IV, AFFC

Says she who’s carrying around Valyrian steel. And, at the end of the chapter, she asks Hyle Hunt to help her bury Nimble Dick.

“No true knight could refuse such beauty.”

- Brienne IV, AFFC

At the Quiet Isle, the talk of true knights takes a grim turn.

“Ser Quincy is an old man,” said Septon Meribald gently. “His sons and good-sons are far away or dead, his grandsons are still boys, and he has two daughters. What could he have done, one man against so many?” He could have tried, Brienne thought. He could have died. Old or young, a true knight is sworn to protect those who are weaker than himself, or die in the attempt.

- Brienne VI, AFFC

Dark as it is, Brienne lives those words.

Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice. She stepped out into the rain, Oathkeeper in hand.

- Brienne VII, AFFC

The elimination of all the stuff about “true knights” is why Jaime and Brienne’s storylines have, in the show, turned into such awful messes. In the books, trying to live up to the ideal is their guiding motivation (a new motivation, in Jaime’s case). Inasmuch as knighthood is a thread in Brienne’s storyline, it’s people asking if the armoured woman carrying a sword is a knight, and Brienne replying with various degrees of hostility, “No.”

Without it, Jaime’s wandering around Dorne and King’s Landing aimlessly, while the moral heart of Brienne’s futile search is gone, replaced by more vengeance and episodes upon episodes of staring at a window. Brienne tries. She tries to be a knight even though just about everyone says she can’t, she tries to find Sansa even though she knows it’s incredibly unlikely. She keeps trying in the face of past, likely, and repeated failures.

It’s what I love best about book!Brienne. She stares down every failure and thus far has kept going anyway.

“Noble words, but words were easy. Deeds were hard.”

- Brienne I, AFFC

The show dismissed that as dull, and had Brienne succeed, as far as possible without breaking their planned plots. Almost immediately, in fact. Twice. She gets good information on Arya in 4.07, after one on-the-road scene with Pod, and finds Arya in the very next episode she appears in (4.10). In the next scene after that, Brienne and Pod are in the immediate vicinity of Sansa (5.01), quickly followed by an actual meeting between the two in 5.02.

Needless to say this leaves her little time for defending orphans. After 5.05 (“Kill the Boy”) she’s stuck staring at a window, passively waiting for Sansa, rather than actively searching for a way into Winterfell and a more reliable means of passing messages. It’s lazy storytelling is what it is, designed to keep Brienne’s character out of the way for half a season and to provide a sop to the whole “the North remembers” plot.





Conclusion

The more I think about it, the less I can see book!Brienne and show!Brienne as the same characters. Oh, they’re similar in some respects. They’re both warrior women in a patriarchal culture, searching for Sansa Stark out of a duty to Catelyn Stark. So not opposites.

But book!Brienne is a young woman, still inexperienced in many emotional matters, shaped profoundly by her lack of conventional attractiveness, her mistrust covering up a desire for approval and what can only be described as a loving and loyal heart. She has a conflicted relationship to her society’s gender roles, acutely aware that in terms of appearance and physical capability she can never fulfil the assigned feminine role properly, yet excels in a more masculine one. For all she’s only mildly regretful that she’s unmarried, being treated as desirable, a “proper maid,” is a big deal for her. For all she’s dedicated to the knight’s code, being treated like a knight is a big deal for her. She’s deeply romantic and idealistic, consciously trying to implement those (masculine-coded, in this society) ideals in her own day-to-day life.

With show!Brienne, there are some key differences. Age, for one. Show!Brienne’s a mature woman, with greater confidence and an easiness in her own skin that book!Brienne lacks utterly. The whole concept of “badass,” for another. Show!Brienne’s a stone-faced unhesitant killer. Book!Brienne is totally badass - no chance, and no choice - but righteousness figures heavily into how badass she is. It’s not about how many of Littlefinger’s hired guards or random soldiers she can mow down, it’s about the lengths she’ll go to in order to do what she thinks a true knight would do. The discussion of true knights is essential, not least because of my next point.

That point is gendered physicality.

Gwendoline Christie is definitely the right size to play Brienne, but even so, we don’t see show!Brienne wearing a mishmash of men’s clothing because nothing else will fit her, and show!Brienne is nowhere near as unattractive as book!Brienne is described. The very fact that Gwendoline Christie is beautiful means that show!Brienne had social options that book!Brienne lacked - and, unfortunately, what we learn of show!Brienne’s backstory is once again framed as “not like other girls,” without much of an examination of what actually not looking like other girls means. The many, many people who insult Brienne for looking more masculine than feminine have almost all been edited out, and the insults book!Brienne routinely hears restricted mostly to Jaime.

And finally, general kindness. In later seasons, show!Brienne’s spent more time with Pod than anyone else, and show!Brienne’s relationship with Pod is awful to watch. She’s curt, she’s rude, she’s mean, she’s dismissive. It’s ugly and petty and a dismaying replacement for a supportive, respectful relationship in the books. Why should we like a character who spends most of her screen time picking on her inoffensive squire?

It’s not the same as the books, and until the more recent seasons, that’s been tolerable to see on screen (though erasing the bulk of the patriarchal discrimination Brienne suffers for not appearing sufficiently feminine and her severe self-image issues is not cool). In more recent seasons, though, the kind, honourable woman who set a good example for Jaime has been bullying her squire and ignoring the most important part of her noble mission in favour of vengeance and fight scenes with named characters.

It’s not sympathetic, not in the least, and the gap between the book and show versions makes it all the more disappointing.