Brienne - The Maid of Tarth

I was inspired to do my Brienne profile after my last post. Brienne does not appear right away and doesn't really hit her stride until the third book. Then, she is given her own POV chapters in Book 4. Brienne is a really cool character and one of my favorites. She is described as extremely unattractive and mannish. She is tall, flat-chested and thick. Her face isn't much better, with an oft broken nose and she is covered in freckles. She does have pretty blue eye (noticed by Jaime, awww). All of this wouldn't be a huge deal, but Brienne is the only child of a noble family. Her dad wanted to marry her off to someone suitable, but that proved to be a difficult task. Brienne is much more interested in becoming a knight and focuses her energy on honing those skills.

This picture is from the second season of the HBO series. Brienne doesn't have a large role yet, but they did an excellent job casting her. I was a bit worried when they first showed the actress they casted, Gwendoline Christie. She is way pretty and was hoping they weren't going to "Hollywoodize" Brienne.

So far, I think she has done an excellent job of portraying Brienne. She even has a Twitter account! Check her out at https://twitter.com/lovegwendoline She is very funny and even talks about filming the show here and there. I just think she is great! But back to Brienne, the character. The poor thing has some mean nicknames. She is called the Maid of Tarth as a way to point out her virginity. Some of the men in Renly's camp make wagers on who can "take her maidenhead" in a cruel bet. She is also called Brienne the Beauty in a obvious mocking fashion. Despite the fact that she shows great skill with a sword, no one really takes her seriously as a knight because she is a woman. The only man who showed her any kindness was Renly Baratheon. He treated her courteously and with respect..so Brienne promptly fell completely in love with him. Oh Brienne honey, I don't think you are Renly's type!

Reasons to love Brienne: It is very easy to identify with Brienne. I think we've all felt uncomfortable in our own skin and felt like an outcast. Poor Brienne spent most of her early life stuffed into dresses and looking ridiculous. She was forced to play the part of a lady and did so poorly. Once she discovered she wanted to become a knight, there was no turning back. She is very loyal and wanted to use her skills and become a member of King Renly's Rainbow Guard (ha) to protect Renly. She eventually acheives her goal by defeating Ser Loras, the Knight of Flowers, in competition and becomes "Brienne the Blue" in the Rainbow Guard. Here is the scene of her defeating Loras.

LOL Loras is none too pleased by this turn of events! I think Brienne is making him a little bit jealous! But Renly can't go wrong with Brienne as a protector. Not only is she in love with him, she is the most loyal character in the series despite maybe Ned Stark. If she swears and oath to you, she takes it seriously and will fight until the end. When things don't turn out so well with Renly (sniff), she then pledges her services to Catelyn Stark and she proves to be just as loyal to her. Well, if she can stop flirting with her Kingslaying prisoner for 5 seconds!

Reasons to hate Brienne: There isn't really any reason to hate Brienne. As I mentioned before, In "A Sword of Storms", the story with Brienne and Jaime is one of my favorites. It was told from Jaime's point of view. In "A Feast for Crows", Brienne's storyline with Jaime is over for the most part, and her story is a bit boring to me. It picks up later, but I feel it is kind of pointless. She is searching for Sansa and Arya and we, as the readers, already know where those two are. So it's kind of boring to read about Brienne looking for them. Especially when she is way off!

High School: Aww Brienne is someone everyone can identify with in high school! She would be an ugly, nerdy girl who keeps to herself. She would be made fun of for her looks and wouldn't be able to hide because she was so tall. She would probably play a sport like basketball (or hockey?) and be better than all of the guys. But they wouldn't respect her because they would be jealous that she was better than them. And the guys would all invite her to prom as a big joke. But Brienne would have her own crushes that probably wouldn't lead to anything. She would have a crush on her gay best friend and would annoy the hell out of his boyfriend. The Jaime high school character would eventually be assigned as her lab partner and she would start out hating him. But then over time, she would soften towards him and have secret fantasies about him being her boyfriend.

Let's Mix in Some Sticks: So Saucer and I have been discussing this one for a couple of days. I asked her if there were any female hockey players that would work for Brienne. I guess there aren't and that's okay. Instead, we think we can put Brienne as a catalyst in one of the more popular hockey bromances. Let's go back to Saucer's Patrick Kane post and focus on the Patrick and Jonathan Toews bromance. They would totally be like Renly and Loras in the ASOIAF universe and Brienne would come between them. Her hockey counterpart is going to be T.J. Oshie!! Saucer will be doing a post on him soon, so stay tuned. I imagine him wanting to be Toews new best friend. Toews would like him all right, but it would make Patrick super mad!! Here is a picture of the three of them.

It looks like T.J. Oshie is dying to join Patrick and Johnny's Rainbow Guard.

I am going to end this post with a funny picture from Ser Loras's Twitter account (aka https://twitter.com/FinnJones). Adorable..Brienne and Loras getting along!

~Beddee