Is Jaime Lannister a "telling not showing" example?
Warning: spoilers of A Song of Ice and Fire.
I was reading through this site that you should avoid telling what a character is by using other characters, example "Dan is the funniest person I know" - Jack, instead, you should show that Dan is funny, "show don't tell".
So I was wondering, is Jaime Lannister an example of this? through A Song of Ice and Fire we hear how good of a swordsman Jaime is, over and over, but he never actually does anything that would prove this, he is captured in one of the first fights we see him in (might actually be the first, and we don't even actually see/read the fight), and even here we read how many people he killed before being captured, and yet again we're being told, not shown, and then he's captive for a while and ends up getting his hand cut, in which point we can't see him doing any fighting anymore because now he lost his fighting hand...
Is Jaime Lannister a perfect example of telling not showing, or did I get the concept wrong?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/12246. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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There is an element the other answers do not address. Jaime has a reputation as being a great swordsman. We are shown, not told, that he has this reputation. A character's reputation is as much an attribute of his, as any skill or trait he might possess.
Now, a reputation can be true, or false, or somewhere in between. In fact, G.R.R. Martin addresses this, with various characters, Jaime included. For example, Jaime's "nickname" 'The Kingslayer' is taken as a negative thing, when in truth, he should have done it sooner. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we tend to believe reputation. It's a form of crowdsourcing. Like wikipedia: if wikipedia says, for example, that David Garrett is a renowned violinist who is performing with the best orchestras around the world, I don't need to have heard him to "know" he's good. If a lot of people say the same thing, they're probably not all wrong, right?
An interesting thing happens with Jaime: he has the reputation of being a great swordsman, but having lost his sword hand, this reputation is no longer true. Only, it's still a new thing, his reputation hasn't yet adjusted to "having been" a great swordsman. Quite a bit of story tension is derived from this.
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I actually asked a similar question to this in a different SE site, and I think that GRRM actually provides enough evidence to prove that he is an incredibly accomplished swordsman.
However, you are correct, that he does the majority of building up Jaime's legendary skill with telling rather than showing, but after researching it I realized that this was entirely intentional.
Yes, he is an accomplished swordsman, and we see it on several occasions, and others who have seen him fight can vouch for that. However, he underwent a very unique set of circumstances to build up the renown around the world that he is the greatest swordsman alive.
If you read the linked question, I've provided all the reasons for how his natural skill, luck, and also politics contributed to his legend. And this legend surrounding him causes him to become one of the most arrogant and cocky characters in the book, assuming that he can do as he pleases and get away with it because no one can stop him.
This was all to build up to the pivotal moment when he lost his hand. As the author loves to kill off the main characters, this was simply another one of them. He killed the greatest swordsman alive.
Throughout the rest of the story, Jaime goes through a massive transformation in character, as he reevaluates exactly who he is now that he can no longer fight with a sword. He had pinned his entire identity onto his right hand, and now he has to find another identity.
All of this whilst everyone else in the world treats him like the exact same entitled scumbag that he used to be. He gets to see exactly what he had become through the eyes of someone else. This encourages all of the actions he takes later, as he tries to repent for the sins of his former life.
However, he is required to maintain a balancing act with his former persona, as it is shown that he can no longer fight at all, and manages to get by for a very long time using only the legend of his fighting prowess that had been built up around him for all of those years. He needs everyone to think that he is still the greatest swordsman alive so that no one will challenge him, as he will surely lose.
So in order to write the redemption story and allow Jaime's character arc to progress the way it did, the author was actually showing the readers that the character managed to get by on reputation alone, and could continue to do that whilst also attempting to correct all his former mistakes.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19959. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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