The trope does apply between Jaime and Cersei, but for Jaime, it’s played entirely straight (his flirting with other women after their falling out in AFF Cs not withstanding).
With Cersei it may have been invoked in the earlier books, but once we see her perspective, and learn more of her history it’s a clear subversion (and only a subversion), as her feelings for Rhaegar and Aurane Waters show she’s not in fact only genuinely attracted to Jaime, even if her having sex with others being merely a tool she’s forced to use.
This is a trope that’s simply being used to explore their ‘same soul in two bodies’ mindset, and the fact one plays it straight while the other flat out subverts it is just one more example showing they were always two fundamentally different people.
Just to be clear we're understanding each other: What I'm hearing is you're not claiming the trope is entirely absent — we're in agreement that the trope is at play in some form. Where we diverge is that you think it ends at subversion while I think it continues being played with after that.
Cersei is attracted to other people at first, but is unable to sustain that attraction once she actually tries to be with them. She becomes disillusioned with Lancel and Taena after trysts, and is able to sustain attraction to Rhaegar because he's Loving a Shadow.
Do you agree that what happens next is — if not a variation of the trope — at least the continuation of the same thread which began with the Single-Target Sexuality thing?
I think this could be considered:
- Double Subversion: I think there is a second subversion in how this information is presented. There's always a two-step: the pattern is consistently that a love interest is first introduced at face value, then undercut.
- The tryst with Lancel is introduced by Tyrion in AFFC Jaime 1 and then undercut 4 chapters later in Cersei 2.
- The first mention of the Rhaegar-Aurane thing is AFFC Cersei 4. It's undercut 7 chapters later in Cersei 5, when we get the backstory about how Tywin had promised her as a child that she'd marry him, and it's a Loving a Shadow thing where he's a Pretty Boy symbol of the better future she thought she'd have.
- A much briefer interim, but the Taena scene in AFFC Cersei 7 begins with Cersei hoping it might land with her, and ends with disappointment.
- Zig-Zagging Trope: It riffs off the original trope, but in an unusual way.
- Not any Playing With variation, but just a comment on where the story takes this idea thread next.
~EndBringer If I saw a example that was just, "X is attracted to a handful of characters in variously hollow ways, and is only substantively attracted to Y," I would agree that's Square Peg, Round Trope.
The reason I think this case is different is that I think the trope has intentionally been brought into play, by way of Jaime playing it straight. So when something related happens with Cersei, I think that's playing with the trope after some fashion.
Maybe Double Subversion isn't the precise form, though. Would Zigzagging be a better term for it?
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