A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Jaime IX
Tywin offers to release Jaime from the Kingsguard and make him heir to the Rock; Jaime refuses, and learns what his father's love is worth when refused.
The chapter retold
Tywin Lannister makes his son an offer that should be irresistible: release from his Kingsguard vows, and with it, formal recognition as heir to Casterly Rock ÔÇö everything Jaime lost the day he took the white cloak, handed back to him now that Tywin needs an heir who isn't Tyrion and isn't, in his eyes, Cersei either. Jaime refuses, choosing to keep the vows he took as a naive boy over the inheritance his father is finally willing to grant.
The refusal costs him something he did not fully anticipate: Tywin's affection, such as it ever was, turns out to have been entirely conditional on usefulness, and a son who declines the one thing his father is offering learns exactly how thin that love runs when it stops getting what it wants. The chapter completes Jaime's arc away from his father's value system even as it reveals how little that departure will actually be forgiven.
This movement: Gold, Ice, and the Hanged Woman
- Jaime frees his brother; Tyrion detours through the Tower of the Hand: Shae in the bed, Tywin on the privy, a crossbow for both.
- Lysa Arryn flies from the Moon Door screaming about tears and dark words; Littlefinger blames a singer.
- Jon Snow is elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch on Sam's clever tongue.
- Epilogue at the Twins: the Brotherhood hangs Freys for a hooded woman whose throat gapes ÔÇö Lady Stoneheart remembers.