Matching 50 Game of Thrones characters with 50 European countries

Germany: Jaime Lannister

Everyone loves a good redemption story, right? Underdogs are great and old school heroes have their merits, but there’s something extra compelling about watching a former bad guy mend their ways. This is probably part of what makes the concept of the “anti-hero” so popular.

On Game of Thrones, no redemption story is as prominent as Jaime Lannister’s. When we first meet Jaime, there’s a lot going against him. He was privileged, he was having an affair with his own sister, and he pushed a little boy out an open window. For most characters, I’d say those things are impossible to come back from.

Yet somehow, Jaime stole our hearts. After losing a hand as well as big chunk of his pride, Jaime became the hero we all wanted. He’s not perfect — far from it, in fact — but he’s trying to rectify his misdeeds and one can’t help but love that.

Jaime has more than a little in common with Germany. It’s impossible to forget the atrocities committed by the Nazi party during the second World War, but the country has long been working to put that grisly past behind it, and is now considered a forward-thinking haven. We continue to root for Germany in the same way we root for Jaime to survive the game of thrones unscathed.