Jaime Lannister’s Hand & Other Game Of Thrones Notes
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James Hibberd, Entertainment Weekly - April 6, 2014
From a disability perspective, the highlight of last night’s “Game Of Thrones” premier was seeing Jaime Lannister fitted for his new prosthetic hand. I can’t figure out a way paste in a picture here legitimately, but there’s a good photo in the Entertainment Weekly article linked above. Considering what a small scene it was, the whole golden hand bit gave me a lot to think about:
- The hand is definitely an example of form over function. It looks amazing, but as Jaime himself hints, it doesn’t look very useful. For what it’s worth, real-world prosthetics today are often both functional and ornate.
- Gold doesn't seem like the right material for a prosthetic. I get that carbon fiber is out of the question, but surely if they can invent a substance like "Valyrian Steel", they could come up with a strong-yet-flexible alloy and give it a cool-sounding name.
- Showing the doctor first putting a sort of sock on Jaime’s stump before attaching the prosthetic was a nice bit of accuracy. That seems like a detail they got from some research into how real amputees attach their prosthetics.
- Jaime’s reaction to losing his hand seems just right for the kind of man he was before. Mostly he jokes about it and assures everyone that he can adapt. He’s probably not quite as confident underneath, but really, he probably should be. As he points out, at worst he now enjoys a somewhat reduced advantage over every other sword-wielding person in Westeros.
Two other disability-related thoughts:
- In my earlier listing of disabled characters, I forgot Maester Aemon of Castle Black, who is blind. He’s one of my favorite minor characters, too, so I can’t believe I forgot him. I love that he’s kind, but that you can tell he’d not hesitate to take care of business if he felt he had to.
- Seeing yet another tense scene between Tyrion and Shae was agonizing. I know it’s not in the spirit of the show, but I just want those two to run off together, the way Shae suggested back at the start of Season 3.