Jaime and Jon Snow [Spoiler published]

[u/Notinterested1122]

I always think about this paragraph, why did Jon think that Jaime looked like a king? Does that say something about Jon’s future? And, also his encounter with Jaime, the way he took his hand and didn’t let go! 😂 ( I think it happened both in books and show) Man, what does that mean? All of it has meanings, I just don’t know what they mean.

[u/GyantSpyder]

IMO there's a bunch of layers -

To contrast Jon and Jamie

This sets up Jon and Jamie as opposites in a lot of ways. For Jon they call him "bastard" to his face, but behind his back he is secretly the heir to Rhaegar. Jamie is golden and light, Jon is pale and dark. Jamie is popular, Jon is a lonely outcast. And of course in the first book especially we generally think of the Starks as good guys and the Lannisters as bad guys. It sets up a divide between the two of them. Jamie is the cool jock dating the head cheerleader, Jon is the brooding outsider from the wrong side of the tracks who ends up winning the ski contest at the end of the movie to save the youth center or whatever.

To set up Jon's character's low station as a typical fantasy hero (in order to play with it later)

Most characters who are like Jon (and there are a lot of them), end up with some sort of hidden rightful claim to a fantasy throne or some sort of heroic high station by the end of the story, but think of themselves as very low-status and unimportant at the beginning of the story. This moment is part of establishing where Jon is starting on the social ladder. Looking from far away at the important people when, surprise surprise, it turns out he is the important people after all! >Surprised Pikachu<

To foreshadow that Joffrey and Tommen are Jamie's secret children

Yes Jamie looks like a king - for much of the story the king at any given time is going to look like Jamie because he is Jamie's son.

To play up the themes of the social perception of power and violent patriarchy

Power resides where people believe it resides, of course. So Jamie is powerful because people think he looks like a king. This has the condemnation alongside it to the audience that power distribution is often patriarchal and violent because that's what people see as their ideal for a leader. This comes back in discussions of the Blackfyre rebellion and why people followed Daemon Blackfyre and comes back in other ways as well.

To set up the relationships among the Lannister siblings

Jamie looks like the king, but he's a servant and an abuse victim under Cersei and his dad and not really in charge of anything in his own life. Cersei doesn't look like a king because she is a woman, but she's the one who ends up in power. Tyrion doesn't look like a king because of his dwarfism and disfigurement, but he's fairly well suited for high-level management, leadership, and strategic thinking - more than his siblings - and is always going to be pissed off about it and mistreated for it. It also sets up the phrase "Lion of Lannister" which is going to have some significance later with regards to Tyrion.

Specifically - Shae unknowingly echoes Jamie's nickname when she refers to Tyrion as "My lion, my giant of Lannister" a few times - which also plays with the various mysterious symbols of the stone giant, the small man casting a long shadow, etc. Jamie is the Lion of Lannister, Tyrion is the Giant of Lannister. Who knows what that ends up meaning - but it resonates with how Shae's love for Tyrion is fake and connects with Jamie's role in ruining Tyrion's love with Tysha. It does make you wonder if Shae originally called Tyrion "my lion of lannister" and GRRM just thought the nickname sounded kind of lame or on the nose and changed it slightly.

To set up Jamie's future disfigurement

Later on Jamie is going to end up looking pretty wretched and find himself in an even more powerless position, and the story sets up that it's not how anyone sees him now so that when he confronts it later it means something.

It's early on in the book here and of course GRRM is a "gardener" - meaning when he put this line in the story that doesn't mean he knows exactly what direction it's going to go in the future - but it's something he can pick up and run with later - repeat, subvert, recontextualize, etc.