One Word Says It All: Reddit's Spot-on Summary of Jaime & Tyrion's Relationship

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most upvoted answer was "Brothers".

And this is the testament to the fact that the Lannister brothers are among the relatively few people in Game of Thrones, who have a family relationship, which we may recognize as "normal", with mutual affection and even some degree of trust.

Most families in Westeros are unhappy, and siblings in particular are routinely hostile, or, at the very least, alien to each other.

Yes, two of the Stark siblings (Jon and Arya) too have a friendly relationship – but that becomes hard to remember, since these characters part their ways early in Season 1 to follow entirely unrelated plotlines, and only reunite near the finale.

Murderous enmity between Baratheon brothers or Tyrion and Cersei, or hostility between Sansa and Arya, or the abusive relationship between Daenerys and Viserys, are much more relevant to the plot.

On this background the brotherly love between Jaime and Tyrion, with associated attempts to help each other out of tight spots, becomes much more noticeable.

And on the background of screwed-up feelings both of the brothers have for the rest of their family it is noticeable as well.

Perhaps this relationship too contributed to both Jaime and Tyrion joining the ranks of most popular and well-liked characters on Game of Thrones.

The show added some scenes highlighting their bond with each other, one of the rare cases when additions of original scenes to the book material were well-received.

(But even in the book, where Tyrion is a much more selfish person, saved from being despised by the audience in large part by the fact that we see him through his own eyes, he still cares for Jaime, and vice versa).

Other popular one-word characterizations of their relationship (which did not amount to some variations of "brotherly") were, by the way, "genuine" and "complicated".