How A Song Of Ice And Fire Tricks You Into Hating Cersei Lannister
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- Опубликовано: 14 июн 2024
- Cersei Lannister is undeniably one of the greatest villains in Westeros. On the surface, she seems to be lacking in any redeeming qualities, but this is how A Song of Ice and Fire tricked readers into hating her.
Content Of This Video:
00:00 What Makes Cersei Different From The Lannisters?
03:03 The POV Trap
09:17 Cersei Is As Smart As Any Lannister
13:32 Cersei Hates Women Because Men Hate Women
17:02 Conclusion
17:48 Outro 
Развлечения
I'm not sold about us being tricked. Cersei does so much damage to not only herself, to the Crown, to House Lannister and worst of all in my opinion to Tommen. Her POVs in AFFC also really show us how screwed in the head this woman is. If you didn't hate her before AFFC, you'll definitely hate her afterwards.
How I describe Cerci’s pov’s is probably the closest we’ll get to the mental state someone like the mad king was in. Cerci is basically living in lala land and seems to have such a deep separation from reality that if she was in Borden times I’d say she’d qualify to see a psychiatric ward.
Now although this is just my opinion, but I believe Cerci will never be satisfied with prophecy and basically view anyone as the “younger and more beautiful person” that it becomes a self fulfilling thing. Which is why I believe the younger and more beautiful person is in fact herself.
@@ryanelliott71698 I actually never thought about how her POV is similar to Aerys. As for prophecy, I think the valonqar is certainly Jaime.
Agreed. But the same can be said about Tyrion, Jamie and Tywin. So portraying her as 'the worst' Lannister is at least a bit dishonest
@@ryanelliott71698
It's just my own headcanon, but I'm inclined to think _Cersei_ will eventually be responsible for Myrcella's death; either accidentally, when her focus shifts from the Tyrells, to the Martells- & she tries to take them out, or deliberately, in her growing paranoia- after ridding herself of any other potential suspects - the truth is that, like Jaime- she only loves her children as extensions of herself; she doesn't care about them as their own persons*- & Myrcella's as beautiful as her, smarter than Joffrey, & more self-possessed than Tommen - both books & show indicated she had more of an understanding of the world around her than either of her brothers- & she's deeply loved.
*She's indicated this attitude, in how terribly she treats Tommen- threatening his whipping boy, who he cares for as a friend- to get his compliance. She was already in a state of denial over her beauty & figure- 'til her forced Walk of Atonement threw the reality into sharp relief - I think she will only grow in focus & paranoia. Obviously, she was not at S6 Cersei-level power at the end of Book 5, but it's coming...
What she's saying is that people love Jaime (myself included), Tyrion and even some weirdos idolize Tywin. But Cersei gets all the hate when she is not much worse than the rest of her family.
I think Tywin is considered smart for the same reason why Rick Sanchez is considered smart: Because the media of the last few decades have primed people to equate cynicism with intelligence and vice versa. Tywin is not considerably smarter than his daughter. When it comes down to it, he uses the exact same brute force and low cunning approach as Cersei, his priorities and perspective on family and politics are about equally as warped as hers, and the only reason he gets somewhat better results is because the people of Westeros by default are conditioned to fear a man more than a woman.
So well said.
Cersei gets played pretty easily by Aurane Waters though. I don’t see Tywin putting a guy on the small council because he thinks he’s hot, giving him a bunch of ships and then being surprised when he steals them.
I think thats a little too harsh. Tywin was atleast competent in terms of rule. He served as Hand for years and started very young. Alot of material has said this period saw some prosperity. I think Genna Lannister had the right of it on Tywin.
Your dumbing his character down way to much, hes feared not because hes a man but because he purged two entire family lines when they threatened him. Hes seen as "smart" because he is, he understands how small things can have large consequences when your in a high position and constantly needs to remind his children this, his wit is the main reason Cersei and her bastards are still even alive. He still lets his emotions sway him slightly but is still a genius compared to his peers and kids.
@@IronCrawdady "He's a genius compared to his kids" _really_ isn't a good argument for him being smart, lol.
I've never thought of Cersei as stupid. She's made some poor choices, but so have they all.
Her problem is her affection for spite. It becomes her downfall, her fatal flaw.
We're given her pov when she is at her most alone, bc GRRM doesn’t think much of a person until he takes away the thing they identify with. For her, it's her family. She is obsessed with her own family to an unhealthy degree, so once they're out of the picture, she can be in focus.
She definitely inherited her spite from Tywin. He destroyed an entire house because they insulted his father. Tywin just seems a bit more logical in his revenge than Cersei because he usually has backup plans in place and the power over other people to ensure it happens the way he wants.
I don’t think it’s her family, I think it’s power. The show added scenes and portrayed her as a better mother than she actually was. In the books she mostly values her kids and her family as extensions of herself- not unlike Tywin only valuing his kids as his legacy and not as actual people.
Agreed. It’s not that she’s not smart; she is in fact clever and tactical when she decides to be. It’s that she ends up sabotaging herself by letting her spite and hatred cloud her view.
Personally I think Cersei actually is as intelligent as she thinks, namely “Tywin with teets.” That being said I have a *much* lower opinion of Tywins intelligence than most people do.
True she's intelligent and very pretty, but her actions and constant plotting and scheming and scheming and plotting makes her an unrepentant reprobate.
Tywin isn't nearly as smart as the fandom percieves him to be
Honestly Cersei really is Twyin's true heir. Cersei is just as intelligent as Tywin, and Tywin not being as intelligent as he thinks he is. Tywin's brutality and forcefulness would be the downfall of his house's power. Seriously, Tywin helped plan the Red Wedding because he couldn't defeat Robb in war. Tywin forced Sansa to marry his son Tyrion and expects their children will inherit Winterfell, but literally none of the northern houses would serve a Lannister after the Red Wedding. Really, the smarter choice would be to not start a war with the Starks and allow Tyrion to be tried for the crime Catelyn accuses him of. But noooooo, Lannisters are too superior to everyone that none of their members can be fairly tried by the laws of Westeros.
Personally, I think she’s as intelligent as she thinks, but she lets her spite and vindictiveness cloud her judgement and ends up sabotaging herself and making absolutely terrible moves because of it. That’s her main flaw, and the reason not a lot of people like her. When the main driving forces of a character are spite and paranoia, people can’t relate no matter how much “she’s a mother tho” you put into it. If people can’t relate, they aren’t likely to feel for the character.
@@PalepetalTywin could have easily defeated Robb by the time of the Red Wedding. Think about it: Robb had lost well over half of his men, the Tyrells would combine their army with the Lannisters, the Ironborn had taken the North…the war was lost for Robb at that point. Tywin just wanted to get it over as quickly as possible because he is brutal.
I think people arguing Cersei actually being a monster are missing the point. It's not that she's good, it's just that Tyrion, Jaime, and Tywin are also monsters. The point was approached from that angle in this channel's incisive Tywin takedown.
LOL yes exactly, Cersei is just as terrible as the rest of her family but she is often confusingly lambasted as being worse than they are.
Cersei doesn't love Jaime, she likes to sleep with him, have him as personal guard and she doesn't give a fig about his feelings and perspectives. So she's worse than him. Then, she's not clever like Tywin or Tyrion so when she gets some power she only makes it worse (remember how she took Joffrey inside the Red Keep and because of that the soldiers broke ranks, many were killed and Stannis almost won!). So, she's worse than Tywin or Tyrion.
@@pushista9322 Jaime literally treats Cersei the same way......
@@Emma88178wrong. She cheats on him repeatedly and lies to him. So far in the series he’s remained faithful to her. He also gave up his position as heir for her and she hasn’t sacrificed anything for him.
@@Emma88178 Could you tell me the exact chapters about it? In his POV he misses her badly and refuses to have sex with anyone else. She only thinks of him as an extraordinary fighter at her disposal and a means to have kids without external blood, like Targs.
I guess what sets Jaime and Cersei apart (apart from their arcs going in opposite directions and a bunch of other stuff) is that Cersei is allergic to criticism, and tends to react violently when faced with it? Whenever someone goes to criticize her, she slaps them or throws wine in their face. It leads to all sorts of little hypocrisies on her part. Whereas Jaime's PoV's start at pretty much rock bottom, so all he can do is go up, and is able to grow and improve as a person, Cersei is doomed to a downwards spiral, crashing down and down to impossible depths.
She, a queen who fathered her kids out of wedlock, commits adultery in order to frame Margaery for adultery... and when her machinations catch up with her, and she's imprisoned, she doesn't assign any blame to herself, oh no. Instead she blames "false friends, treacherous servants, men who had professed undying love, even her own blood" - not that she showed any of them any loyalty. She scolds Jaime for not knowing the history of Ossifer Plumm, but is confidently ignorant about the history of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. She wishes Margaery would attack her septa-gaolors as that would make her look guilty, then proceeds to wrestle with and try to escape her own septa-gaolors. She's mad that Robert drank too much and used it as an excuse for hurting her, then does the same thing. She blames her washerwomen for shrinking her dresses, won't entertain the idea that there could be another explanation for why the dresses don't fit. She spends her PoVs endlessly bashing women, then when she's in her cell, she tries "appealing to the natural sympathy of one woman for another". She has the High Septon killed, and only once the new High Septon is elected does she thinks about appointing a new one next time around - like yeah, Cersei, why didn't you do that this time? (a fun way I like to read this chunk of AFfC is that, like Tyrion did in ACoK, High Septons are usually unofficially appointed by the Crown, and the election by the Most Devout is just a formality, and has been for the past century or two. Cersei doesn't know this, but the High Septon candidates don't know she knows this, so the whole time, Septon Torbert's thinking: "C'mon, woman! How many times do you want me to wash your stupid feet??? Just endorse me already!!!" Poor Septon Torbert...) She tries to get Falyse and Balman to take care of Bronn, even when she can tell they're not the brightest, and when that goes predictably badly, she disposes of Falyse, and only later does it occur to her that keeping Falyse around would actually be more useful in ousting Bronn. And the list goes on...
Let's not forget she also gave my personal favorite minor character and absolute scumbag Aurane Waters all of her brand new ships then he immediately runs off and becomes a pirate king all because he looked like her childhood crush and flattered her. Yar har a pirate's life for me!
Yeah that's interesting, because in my mind Jaime and Cersei are not set apart in that way, but to me Jaime's attempts to be "better" feel very surface level and image-based, so in that way he's alike to Cersei to me, but just in a different manner because Jaime wants to be seen as the heroic noble knight while Cersei wants to be seen as the masterful leader like Tywin was. Cersei is undeniably a hypocrite, I just find it interesting that she is so often judged separately from the other Lannisters when they seem to be super similar to me.
@theelectricprince8231 not true at all. Jaime's change is inspired by Brienne who reminds him of what an actual knight is. As well as seeing his almost blank page in the White Book. He can be whoever he wants to now, and he'll do that being better and leaving a better legacy.
@@HillsAliveYTI don’t think it’s a surface level change Jaime goes through after losing his hand. I think he’s a fundamentally different person, but it’s only showing up in small actions at first.
@@HillsAliveYTYou're right Jaime does try to be better as you can see with his relationship with Brianna of Tarth, Jamie can grow as a person; if Tirian can figure out an erection is not considered personal growth he will be ok, he is intelligent, has a sense of justice because his main problem is he has a chip on his shoulder
Cersei is straight up unhinged once we get to AFFC. It's not meant to be sympathetic, she literally blows up the Tower of the Hand to make sure Tyrion isn't in there.
I think there is a difference between the Lannisters and the way they are represented, because Cersei doesn't really have an arc in the same way Tyrion or Jaime do/will be set up to have.
Cersei doesnt change or grow throughout the story, and we are stuck with her hateful and spiteful opinions on everybody around her.
With Jaime and Tyrion, we see the other parts of them, comedy with Tyrion and power with Jaime, and how those factors are warped and changed by the time we get to Winds.
Though I would say Jaime may have done more harm than Cersei, Jaime is not the regent and does not have control over the Seven Kingdoms (tenous as that might be with Young Griff coming to KL) and having a Mad Queen as ruler gives people a different perception of Cersei than her siblings or her murderous father.
Well I half agree with you. Cersei is not meant to be sympathetic in AFFC, which is why her POV intro there is interesting because it seems to intentionally prevent anyone from feeling sympathy for her. But, I feel like we may be being led into a bit of a POV trap there, because we don't really know that she hasn't changed or grown throughout the story. And, I think there are at least some context clues indicating that AFFC Cersei isn't the same Cersei who has always existed. I mean, to go back to the death of Robert, Cersei has hated him and been abused by him for years, but she didn't actually kill him until she was in immediate danger. Similarly, she scolds Jaime for trying to kill Bran because they could have solved it by just intimidating him, and she was not planning on Ned's death and was just angling to sideline him from Westerosi politics forever. Obviously it's not hard and fast proof that Cersei was different before, but by the time AFFC hits she's killing people without a second thought, which at least doesn't seem to be the case when ASOIAF began.
The Robert thing is giving her a bit more credit than is necessarily due. Robert was already a drunk and dismissive toward the advice of other, his death was really a matter of time. As far as Cersei being redeemable, she did kill one of her friends/ladies in waiting before she hit 13 so that ship seems to have sailed. I see your point about her internalized misogyny. As far as Kevan, i don't see a reason he would have to respect her when he arrived in Kings Landing, at that point her primary actions as Queen included raising Joffrey, re-arming the faith militant, and alienating and antagonizing the house responsible for keeping the capitol fed. She is obviously not the only player to have made major mistakes in ASOIAF, but those mistakes have consequences.
Robert getting murdered and secretly at that, was a matter of time? I highly doubt that.
LOL yeah I think that saying Robert is giving her more than she's due is a bit of a stretch since he managed to go like 20 years as king doing the same shit without dying, but I guess we'll never know.
And it's the double standard that bothers me the most, like sure, in most instances, why would Kevan respect Cersei? Except he respected Tywin and followed all of his orders even though his decisions were completely batshit and left House Lannister with an abysmal selection of potential allies by the time he actually died.
Alienating the Tyrells was not Cersei's best move, but she wasn't wrong to be paranoid about them, the Tyrells had the Lannisters over a barrel and they knew it because Tywin permanently torched bridges with the Martells, Baratheons, Starks, Tullys, and likely the Arryns. Let's not forget, breaking a betrothal, especially one as important as the one between Joffrey and Sansa, is a massive faux pas that shows how dire the situation for the Lannisters was because they still desperately needed the North but now needed the Tyrells even more.
And yes, Cersei raised Joffrey, but Tywin raised Cersei and Jaime and Tyrion, and it's not like he had zero chance to influence Cersei's children either, so the fact that he left every one of his potential future heirs flapping in the wind and made absolutely no good plans for the Lannister reign to continue after he was gone is absolutely his fault. So Kevan's reaction to Cersei doesn't stick out to me because he's necessarily wrong, but because Tywin did stuff that was a hundred times dumber and Kevan never said "hey go back to Casterly Rock and put me in charge because you're an idiot."
@@HillsAliveYT Fair point with the Tyrells, there is a lot of blame to be laid at Tywins feet. He seems to have taken the wrong lesson from the Reynes and Tarbecks, though to be fair his children did as well. Kevan's issue is that Tywin was right that one time and he refused to really question him after that, but an older brother is not a niece so who knows where his head was at. Aside from his frustration with his stubborn "heir" in Jaime, Tywin went into GOT reasonably thinking he had his legacy locked down, his blood was next in line for the throne, he had Tommen as a spare to circumvent Tyrion if he wanted, and he had his forces ready for war if things went sideways. You're right that he disregarded his children and their wishes in his planning which tripped up his efforts. This is why I like your videos, your perspectives make me think.
@@HillsAliveYTDo you have any idea what your next video is going to be about?
I'm always happy when you upload because you talk about things that few people ever think about. I never thought about how the placement of Cersei's POV would affect her perception of her.
Can you do something on the universally derided Lady Catelyn? She gets an _absolutely bonkers amount of hate from the fandom mostly male and I just don't get it!_
It's a truly mind boggling phenomenon!
Just casually mention Lady Catelyn and some idiot would jump _out of nowhere_ to say what a walking disaster she was.
It's like the very idea of a traditional wife and mother triggers people or something.
Can you also do more House of the Dragon stuff?
@@jonathanthomas4327 "Kevan's issue is that Tywin was right that one time and he refused to really question him after that, but an older brother is not a niece so who knows where his head was at." - that's just the point though! Kevan is infected with the same misogyny as everyone in westeros and he doesn't think he owes Cersei the same respect and support he did Tywin because of it.
Spiteful narcissist is unlikeable? Noo
But relatable? Yess
@@HillsAliveYTa spiteful narcissist like Cersei is not relatable whatsoever to me.
As for Jaime, he literally lost his father that same night. The same night he heard his brother rip him upside and down. Marry that with the emerging guilt of freeing Tyrion, and yes his tone will be sardonic. After all, if he thought he was meant to rule, some part of him would've considered his father's offer to be freed from the kingsguard. Your phrasing makes it sound as if he's intentionally spiting her as opposed to having his own feelings about the situation. They are literally in the same room their father died that same night when that interaction takes place.
LOL I mean fair enough, I hadn't read that passage in a while though and completely forgot when Jaime was like "IDK who has it worse Tommen or the Seven Kingdoms" and then said that Cersei had forgotten herself when she went to slap him so I was like goddamn dude I'd want to slap you too.
And all of that with the fact that he was understandably tired of being her stud stallion.
Good points. She's certainly a horrible person, because of the unique circumstance of mistreatment and privilege in her life. Not unlike Jaime and Tyrion, or Theon, not to mention other POVs. I think that even though her choices have been super influential since AGOT, we start to see her perspective when her growth through crisis becomes important.
One thing I didn't notice until now is that Cersei gets so much more of the blame for her sexual indiscretions. She is approximately as culpable as Robert for having kids outside their marriage, and EXACTLY as culpable as Jaime, yet only one of the three get blamed for having Joffrey.
It should be clear that Cersei and Jaime are the same person, but given different roles, privileges, and abuse.
Um, why would she be blamed less? It was her idea to start the incest and push Jamie to continue a one sided relationship where he's monogamous and isolated enough to completely destroy his chance of having a normal relationship by serving her and the king. Meanwhile she's continuing to have affairs that destroy everything around her because she's intentionally blind to red flags. She also doesn't want Jamie to have a relationship with their kids to hide any suspicious behavior. Cersei being approximately as culpable as Robert in any way is pretty ridiculous. Robert has his faults as a lecherous drunken violent oaf but Cersei is a different beast entirely. Women in asoiaf have affairs and while it's not approved of in westeros it's not the end of the world if you're discreet but Cersei is wildly narcissistic and pretty stupid. She went out of her way to abort all of her kids with Robert instead of making 1 or 2 heirs and then boning Jamie but she wants only her perfect Lannisters kids on the throne as an extension of herself. Robert's bastards didn't start a war Cersei's actions did when she made incestuous bastards with a kingsguard member then decided to make the worst possible decisions for them like raising Joffery to be a violent spoiled cunt and alienating Robert to strengthen her bond with her son or allowing said son to rule at 13 because she can't tell him no or getting in between his relationships with other girls because Cersei has to be the most important woman in the room for everyone. Jamie and Robert combined are still less destructive compared to Cersei and I think it's because of the privileges and restrictions of being a woman. From a young age Robert and Jamie learned early that you have to be able to punch someone in the face and get punched in the face to settle disputes. Cersei always had some kind of protection from consequences that restricted her freedom but shielded her from the worst parts of conflict. As a toddler she was rude, violent and weird even before the death of her mother and by the age of 13 I'm pretty sure she killed 2 people yet she never faced any consequences. She goes through her life constantly belittling her contemporaries and generally doing awful things so when Robert popped her in the mouth twice I didn't feel bad and I wasn't shocked. If more people showed Cersei what happens when you fuck around and find out westeros would be a better place but unfortunately it's happening after all of the destruction she caused.
Ps: I don't think she and Jamie are the same person especially if you acknowledged they had completely different lives but even as toddlers Cersei was generally more spiteful and violent compared to Jamie
I think you make an interesting point about Jaime and Cersei specifically too because they actually desperately TRY to be the same person for almost their entire lives. They very intentionally mirror each other, so the distinctions between their treatment and trajectories is even more telling.
@@JohnDoe-vw4zf Thank you for mentioning all this, so that I don't have to do that, haha. Totally agree, both Cersei and Catelyn did so much damage because they were shielded from the worst part of the conflict by their gender privilege. Ned understood what war meant and what it was, but for Catelyn it was very easy to dismiss his instructions (to go home and prepare his bannermen) and start a war in the worst possible time, and then lose two most important hostages, basically betraying first Ned, then Robb. With Robb it wasn't even her hostage, she had no right to release him even if she would have developed a viable exchange plan (which she didn't). Cersei is equally oblivious to the consequences of her actions, and just like with Catelyn, by letting down her family she eventually harmed herself. Namely, she took away her father's only viable heir and then she refused to produce a single black-haired child. She was accustomed to men shielding her and she thought Tywin would buy her safety and Jaime would defend her no matter what. So Catelyn was sure she would be always surrounded by Stark men or bannermen to clear the stage after she'd enjoyed yet another dramatic performance.
Cersei and Jaime are definitely not the same person, regardless of their circumstances.
Cersei is defined by her ruthlessness and ambition. She dreams of sitting on the Iron Throne “high above them all”. She thinks of herself as “Tywin with teats” or “Tywins only true son” because she wants power like her father. Jaime was basically handed all of that on a silver platter and said “nah, I’m going to join the Kings Guard”.
Jaime also has a fair bit more empathy than Cersei. Tyron says that Jaime was the only person who was kind to him when he was a child. Oberyn Martell tells Tyrion that he saw Cersei abuse Tyrion as a baby- and it’s strongly implied that she drowns her best friend in a well to cover up the prophecy from Maggy the Frog.
Also, I think the reason everyone blames her for Joffrey is because she’s extremely possessive of him and excuses all his faults. He’s her golden boy. Her other two children who were largely ignored by her are sweet and innocent.
@@herminlionel1909 I guess I see their differences as coming directly from the ways they were raised and mistreated in their lives. Cersei is Tywin with teats, just not in the way she thinks. Rather than suffer the humiliation of having an amiable, easygoing father, she had to endure being shut out of (some of) what was handed to Jaime on a silver platter.
Your points about Cersei's childhood psychopathy stand though. I hadn't thought of that.
Cersei has plenty of blame, both for Joffrey existing as a crown prince of questionable legitimacy, and for enabling his behavior. For his behavior, she's probably the most culpable, but there are many people in his life, and none are a very good influence on him. For his birth, she and Jaime are equally culpable, and Robert is no better, even if his philandering is less consequential.
11:30 idk… doesn’t Cersi make Aurean Waters (an unproven bastard who should reasonably be loyal to Stanis) master of ships just because she thinks he’s hot & looks like Rhaegar?
LOL she does, which is why I think that she makes some good decisions and some terrible ones.
I agree that a lot of Cersei's villainy comes from her internalized misogyny and general terrible parenting from Tywin. But I disagree that she's more competent than she's given credit for. I think the perceptual difference between her and her brothers comes down largely to the fact that Tyrion and Jaime do kind things in addition to the monstrous things they do. Tyrion designed Bran's saddle, Jaime rescued Brienne, etc, making them these compelling characters because it's hard to decide whether they're good or evil. Meanwhile Cersei never really does anything kind. She's constantly looking out for herself and herself only. And I disagree that she's no more likely to kill people than Tyrion. She killed Jeyne Farman when she was 13 just to hide a secret. And for all the evil things Tyrion has done, I really doubt he would have given Falyse Stokeworth to Qyburn.
As for Cersei's competence, I think she is perhaps the Lannisterest of the Lannisters when it comes to the great Lannister flaw: she has low cunning but makes plans with little mind to their long-term repercussions. We see plenty of women who have to deal with the same sexist society but do a better job at playing the game, notably Olenna, Margaery, Sansa, Asha, and even Dany, who is not exactly a master politician. I think we really have to acknowledge that Cersei is specifically in power because Varys is using her to destroy the realm. That's in the text. Cersei is good at destroying people and not much else. She doesn't understand the importance of using softness or gaining allies and thinks that ruling is just a matter of ordering people around, killing your enemies, and terrifying people into submission. She understands how to expend power, but not how to gather it.
Plus she's a terrible mom. The way she treats Tommen is horrifying. Even within the context of Westeros, the way she tortures him is no way to teach a child strength. Very similar to how Randyll Tarly treated Sam.
You are right that Tyrion and Jamie do kind things in addition to terrible ones and Cersei doesn't really. However, given that they're fictional characters, I side-eye GRRM pretty hard for choosing to write it that way. It's not exactly progressive to make your dudes sympathetic anti heroes while their sister is portrayed as just 100% awful from childhood.
The way she treated Joffrey was also bad. Joffrey was a psychopath and Cersei relish the fact. Cersei made sure anyone who hurts Joffrey pays dearly. Joffrey murdering prostitute in his bedchamber she didn't bat an eye. The only time Cersei got upset was the execution of Ned Stark. Tywin saw Joffrey as a problem in managing a King. He honestly perfer Tommen to Joffrey as a King. Cersei basically idealize Joffrey as being perfect.
@@KuningannaSansa If Song of Ice and Fire had zero compelling female characters, I would agree with you. But let's compare Cersei to Asha. Asha is like the polar opposite of Cersei. Her uncles and brother are all awful and gleefully enact toxic masculinity, but Asha is incredibly intelligent and takes strategic steps toward reforming her patriarchal culture. I don't think there's any problem with having an "evil queen" archetype if that evil queen represents misogyny and you also have a good queen who represents progressive values. Cersei is one of maybe five characters who are irredeemably awful, and the others are all men. Meanwhile Brienne, Asha, Arya, Dany, Arianne, and Sansa relate to sexism in more progressive ways. So I don't see any progressiveness problem here.
And it's not like Cersei's evilness is random or intrinsic. Cersei has accepted the toxic masculinity of her culture and engages in perpetuating misogyny. She specifically got a very close view of it because she was able to dress up as Jaime as a child. She became used to being treated as a man and is trying to prove herself as being "not like the other girls". This is a compelling and unique villain origin story that makes anti-misogynist social commentary. If anything, Cersei's portrayal is a treatise on "pick-me" girls way ahead of its time.
@@WhitneyAllisonGG indeed. Her treatment of Joffrey and Tommen demonstrates her poor understanding of accountability. She thinks that in order to hold someone accountable, you need to violently punish them and tear them down, and in order to ally with someone you need to fawn over them and never criticize. Basically how she treats her two sons.
@@WillowGardener Oh I agree that the fact that Asoiaf has so many compelling and different female characters makes the Cersei situation more palatable, but it's still indicative of internal bias from Martion imo.
Firstly, Cersei is naturally going to be compared the most to her own siblings/family and in that comparison she gets the short end of the stick. She is a treatise on pick mes and that part is very well done, but she is also presented as uniquely cruel and psychotic from an early age the way her brothers just aren't (hurting Tyrion as a baby, pushing her friend down a well etc). And as stated above, she gets no positive qualities like they do. That, taken together with the fact that Martin has stated Tyrion is his favourite character AND that writing Cersei's chapters makes him want to take a shower afterwards, makes me look askence at him since they are very similar in many ways.
It is true that other characters who are presented as irredeemable in the story are men, but they are also people like Gregor and Ramsay who aren't anywhere near as important to the story as Cersei is. The show did give Ramsay much more importance but in the books he's really a small fish. It's okay for background characters to be two dimensionally evil, but I expect better for a central villain. That is another reason why it makes more sense to comapre how Cersei is portrayed to how her brothers, male antagonists of equal importance in the story, are written.
And finally, Asha. Yeah, Asha handles her awful envioerment much better than Cersei. But there are key differences between them. Tywin has his perfect son in Jamie. Balon has no male heirs left in his mind when Theon is taken to Winterfell so he takes Asha more under his wing and allows her to prove herself. When we meet Asha in the story she has the loyalty of her own men backing her and it's because of the way she has earned their respect in quite masculine ways, battle etc. Cersei is never in a position to build her own following in that manner. She could build alliances with the ladies of the court but her misogyny and lack of political education hinder her there. Asha also has allies in her own family like her uncle The Reader. All of Cersei's family desert her.
She kind of always was the villain. Since she killed her best friend.
I think she is definitely more petty and willing to kill innocent randoms than her siblings. Tyrion has some cruel killings but they had at least some sort of tangible, specific purpose ( that doesn’t justify the singers fate), and but what Cersie did to those puppeteers ( had the 2 men executed and the women sent to Qyburn) just because they performed a play was beyond cruel and more than jaime she Tyrion ever did to random people
I think while her intelligence is definitely underrated due to her gender, she is more evil than the others in my opinion
I'm not sure that I agree. Cersei makes many short sighted decisions and very often cruel ones too. Davos wasn't trained to rule at all, but I can't imagine he'd have done worse if he was put in her position.
Ikr?
Evidence of her incompetent, thoughtless plotting goes waaay back to her childhood*- & _not_ just her treatment of Tyrion; she was both obsessed with her eventually marrying Rhaegar (as was Tywin, to a lesser extent)- & totally jealous of anyone who 'tried to get between her & Jaime' - her father at the time, was aiming for a match with fellow Great House, the Tully's (oh, the irony)- & sent Jaime there for a bit: however, other than developing a bit of a boy-crush of Brynden Tully- he showed no interest in either of the girls.
But, & it's an important 'but'- the jealous Cersei got in his ear, about all the honour & prestige of the Kingsguard- but more importantly, when she married Rhaegar- he'd be close by, & nothing need change between them...
We all know Jaime was let into the Kingsguard, not long after he was knighted- & Tywin's response of resigning- which resulted in him dragging Cersei back to Casterly Rock, while Jaime remained in the capitol - he blamed Aerys, but who's to say it ever would have happened without Cersei...?
*Oh- & when we get a flashback of Cersei/ descriptions of her earlier life, she's also exemplifying some heinous character traits- which has little to do with her current 'rock bottom' state - there's strong circumstantial evidence that she committed murder when she was still a child- & Baelish (though nowhere near a trustworthy character) indicated _well before_ the fact, that Cersei would have form for the murder of Robert's bastards (which is why the show's directions with that event, & Cersei's hypocritical reaction to it struck me as bizarre)...
Yeah. One of my favourite ,moments was when Cersei criticized Robert for letting the Iron Islanders up again when he had them on their knees. She goes on to say that Tywin would have committed genocide against them. The problem is that in a book before AFFC, Tywin told Joffrey that when an enemy is on their knees you should let them up again, or no one will want to bend their knees to you. Cersei was in the room and she still didn't get it. She has some wits, but she makes terrible decisions.
@@OcarinaSapphr-Why is it that when you described a bunch of stupid choices Jaime made it’s Cersei’s sole fault for convincing him and not Jaime’s fault for doing them? This framing is exactly like how people see Joffrey as described in the video: people think it’s exclusively Cersei’s fault her incest child exists when Jaime had to partake as well. Also Jaime was politically trained by his father when Cersei wasn’t to inherit as the eldest son in a powerful family. So if anything him choosing not to marry, to become a Kingsguard and follow Cersei around is more his fault than hers. Especially because Tywin would’ve let him walk back those choices at any time, so he was continuously choosing not to do his duties over and over.
I also don’t see why it matters if Cersei was not the most cunning child, because that would be even more reason that Tywin should’ve prepared her before literally sending her to the lion’s den in King’s Landing. If it were up to Tywin, Jaime would be at Casterly Rock and Cersei would’ve been in King’s Landing either alone or with Tyrion responsible for making the princes and princess politically savvy. All three of the heirs to the throne dying young in the story (illegal bastards as we know but regardles) is not only proof of Cersei’s failures politically (again why would you not prepare her) but of the entire Lannister house fumbling and flailing as a unit. They all wait until Joffrey is on the throne to try to course-correct and fight over who will influence this evil teenage boy
Well I don't disagree with you, I just don't think this is an issue that is exclusive to Cersei. Like all of the Lannisters, she has moments where she actually does something pretty brilliant, but for the most part their method for "winning" is just brutalizing their enemies until they think their enemies are defeated, except they're almost always wrong because their brutality and need to win actually cements everyone's hatred for them. Essentially, I think that Tywin did 90% of the work on House Lannister's downfall, but Cersei fields 90% of the blame because she finished off the last 10% of his shitshow by pulling the same kind of deranged, over the top moves that he always did.
@@HillsAliveYT That’s mostly fair. I agree with almost everything that you’ve said. I think that’s what GRRM intended to show. People are now fighting for Ned’s kids, but who would fight for Tywin’s? Although, I think Cersei shares much more than 10% of the blame. If she’d just had Roberts kids and then killed him off discretely, the Lannister’s would be much more secure. Now her kids are going to die and her house is going to be significantly diminished or destroyed utterly.
She is as ruthless as Tywin, not unintelligent, but very inexperienced AND keeps confusing her emotions with good thinking.
And she's getting more fearful by the minute - that's never good!
She's never been my top choice for most villainous villain.
there are three types of POVS.
people who don't know what's happening
people who know something but not anything substantial
people who don't know whats happening but think they know whats happening
I think Cersei's biggest flaw is that she wanted to fight like a man instead of a woman. Margaery is a perfect mirror to Cersei in that regard. She used the role that a woman should play and succeeded in way Cersei never could. She controlled both her sons and was well loved by the court.
Well this is another interesting component of Cersei's arc, because again, it seems like Tywin just did NOTHING for her at all. Margaery , at least the GoT version, utilizes the role of womanhood to gain power, but her grandmother taught her how to do that. If Cersei got any education on how to use her femininity to her advantage from Tywin or her tutors, she doesn't seem to think of it, and to me it seems like Tywin just never truly planned for his absence and used his children as objects rather than seeing them as people, more importantly the people who would have to keep House Lannister on top after he was gone.
@@HillsAliveYT I agree that Tywin is a terrible father and he allowed Cersei to grow up like that, much like she did with Joffrey later on. But going back to the topic of your video, Tywin had a good excuse as he ran the realm quite professionally, while Cersei didn't have anything to distract her from her parental duties.
@@pushista9322it is hard to raise childeren when you yourself are a mess. Im surprised that Cersei's daughter became so well-adjust.
@@lasloapollo4312😂 That’s because Cersei put all her effort in to the golden boy Joffrey and left Myrcella alone. Tommen is a sweetheart too.
Honestly, it's a bit tragic how Cersei was fucked from the start in that regard. Other characters mostly learned how to succeed as a women in this society from female family members, for Cersei that person died when she was like 7. It's not exactly something Tywin could have taught her even if he wanted to.
Cersei has always been one of my favorite characters. Thank you for covering her.
I LOVE her chapters and her villainy elicits equal shares of face-palm inducing, hilarious, and tragic. She is someone I feel like doesn’t get enough recognition, within the narrative and the fandom. She can Sherlock Scan a room and catch Little Birds in the wall, it’s just the conclusions she makes that trip her up.
I thought her plan for Margaery was kinda brilliant. Margaery is a known horseback rider, she has been getting moontea (whether for Elinor or period cramps), and she’s a widow older than her current husband. If it was anyone beside Cersei, they’d be a genius.
I thought her plan was pretty decent too. Certainly no worse than most characters'. Of the two main issues being how she underestimated both the High Sparrow and Margeary's political education. The classism and mysogeny respectively at the root of these issues are shared with her brothers.
I also think that people seem to forget that she is thrown in a wholly different situation than her family members.
Besides the sexism not helping her, I honestly do not really think Jaime or Tyrion would've acted wholly different when their rule would've been threatened as you said, and Cersei is being put in a position in court where that almost constantly happens to her and her children.
Maybe they would've accomplished a bit more, due to sexism not playing a card and their education, but still they have been shown to kill without regret or so much as a thought beforehand when their position would be threatened.
"Tricked" is a strange word. Cersei is horrible, basically all the time. That's why I hate her
I feel like i guiltily love cersei. I understand her character so much, once you take the time too get too know her deeply. i found myself understanding her feelings with self hate and deep frustrations with her body and feeling like her body is wrong and being very lonely and fearful of being in power and being a constant threat of losing everything bc of this power.
but alot of her actions are also self sabotaging and i do feel she needs too be punished for her villainous choices, but i love her in the show more bc the actress make the character feel human.
I still don’t get how you think she’s smart… if anything her pov chapters prove how insane she is. She’s willing to throw away an alliance with the Tyrell’s over a prophecy
She is very clever when her insanity is not in the way
I think she's as smart as the rest of her family, and her family is way more hit or miss when it comes to intelligence than most people in the audience think they are. And I don't think she's particularly wrong about the Tyrells, sure the prophecy is a factor in her behavior, but her concerns about them wanting to overtake her/Lannister power in general is pretty spot on. The only reason the Tyrells could finagle an alliance with the Lannisters was because House Lannister was in dire straits and the Tyrells knew it, and now with Tywin gone Cersei isn't wrong that she's really on the back foot and the Tyrells will almost certainly take advantage of that to overtake her.
@@HillsAliveYT to a certain extent I get that. But on the other hand Margery saying, “hey maybe Tommen should participate in the small council meetings so he can learn how to run a kingdom” is just good advice that Cerci doesn’t like because it would put Tommen in the hands of people that probably know a thing or 2 better about running a kingdom than arming a financial religious group!
It’s just really hard for me to find what good ideas/ choices she had that were good. Because I can list a lot of bad ones; the faith being rearmed, refusing to pay the iron bank, pissing off the only house that’s keeping her alive for petty reasons, letting Joffrey go wild, being an overall bad mother to her kids, advocates for killing John Snow even though he’s a member of the watch, and a lot of smaller ones that would make this too long
"Cersei's misogyny is fuelled by her upbringing"? You mean the one where she lost her primary female role model, who was never replaced, and seemed to gravitate towards her father? Because I don't recall anything in her POV mentioning time she spent with her aunt Genna.
And "Jaime's better treatment"? As in being trained with swords, and being groomed to be heir, in accordance with both law and custom? Then why isn't Margaery a misogynist too? Or Sansa? Or Catelyn? They're all raised in the same culture. "Jaime's better treatment" is the standard for highborn boys in that society, but their sisters and mothers are not misogynists as a result.
Cersei's misogyny comes from the same source as her misandry. It's because she is arrogant and thinks that if she had what she perceives as the agency of a man, that the world would automatically fall in line with her, like her father. The problem is her judgement is often spiteful and/or short-sighted. And yes, she is a misandrist, because she's views every man but her father as a tool to be used and someone too stupid to use a man's agency properly. That or just an obstacle. She got Jaime to throw away his inheritance to be with her, but chides him consistently when he doesn't do exactly what she wants, and she supposedly loves him most in the world.
She means Cersei was raised in extremely misogynistic society.
@@adapienkowska2605 And how does that alter the point I made? So were many other women in the story, who do not have her outlook.
I mean, Tywin is a very different man in comparison to Ned and Hoster. Sure, even Ned and Tully would not be able to call themselves femminists by today's standards, but they were not as sexist as Tywin was who (from what we know) really did see Cersei only as a mare to be sold and bred.
Sansa had a loving mother and a father who loved her as well even though he was very absent with her. She also has none of Cersei's ambition, so that might have played a role as well. Catelyn's own mother died when she was very young, so in that sense she is quite similar to Cersei, but unlike her she had a father who seemed to genuinely love her and respect her. He never made her feel ashamed of being born a woman.
I also think that Jaime and Cersei being twins has a lot to do with it as well. In their minds, they were identical, Cersei was maybe even the leader of the two. And then, suddenly, they both get treated differently just because of their sex. I remember when I was treated differently as a child from my brother and how shameful I felt. And that was to a much lesser extent than what Cersei went through. Neither of this obviously excuses her actions, but I don't think it's fair to compare Catelyn and Sansa (I can't speak for Margaery because we know nothing about her, but even she has Olenna who must be a huge influence on her life) to Cersei who had a very different upbringing. I wonder what she would be like if Joanna did not die.
@@sardonically-inclined7645 but a lot of them do. These who don't usually were raised by very strong and cable women. Or in another culture all together. She was raised by a cruel and misogynistic father, that from one hand taught her she is uberhuman for being a Lannister and from another taught her she is more akin to cattle because of her gender.
Also, the point isn't that Cersei is not an evil and villainous person, the point is, she is not more evil and villainous than other members of her family, and she gets most of the burn.
@@theelectricprince8231not by a long shot. Catelyn, Arya, Sansa, Brienne have POV chapters. Melisandre too. I am likely missing a few female characters.
Most of Robs story is told from Catelyn's POV. Rob gets no POV chapters
I think there are three main reasons that cause the difference in reception between the various Lannisters, and the POV thing is primarily a symptom of part of one of them. Those being the severity and unusual nature of backstory elements that cause negative character traits, the idea that "what you are in the dark/when not being watched" is telling of their 'true character,' and finally the narrative roles they occupy, which is where the POV related stuff stems from. I'm going to go through each of those areas, because I can, so this will be a long comment XD
When judging a person, people generally make allowances for context like their personal history- which makes how we percive that context very important. It's why so many gritty action heroes that murder a bunch of people have a dead wife or have undergone horrific torture/trauma to make us sympathetic and feel their actions are justified.
As far as backstory elements go for the Lannisters, both Tyrion and Jaime have very explicit, unusual and traumatic events that happen to them. Tyrion is openly stigmatised and mistreated for being a dwarf and has the Tysha situation go down, and Jaime has his entire Kingsguard stint under the mad king and the stigma that followed after (as well as an untreated learning disability in the show). These are both very obviously traumatic situations, and ones which there are few direct parallels to compare how they turned out vs. other people who went through similar situations and may have wound up better/worse. Backstories that are far beyond the standard experience (both irl and in the text) make it difficult to judge how reasonable a person turning out the way they did is. That isn't the case for Cersei.
To be clear, Cersei does suffer, and quite horribly. She's been subject to systemic abuse, brutalization, and various other kinds of mistreatment. But that is not UNCOMMON for Westeros and also mirrors, to a lesser extent, the same sort of misogynistic harms that are done to women in the real world. This means that we aren't judging her from a place of near isolation with only the character's own experience and our own imaginings to go on- we are comparing Cersei Lannister to every other woman we know of remotely similar standing in universe. Cat didn't threaten to murder her husband's bastard if he was kept in Winterfell, so we can assess that by the standards of the world doing so is extreme and out of hand. The hundereds of noble women forced into unhappy marriages generally don't cuckhold and then murder their husbands over it, so Cersei doing so means she is reacting disproportionately.
When we weigh Cersei against the other women in the text she comes off as unreasonable, and her actions are incredibly destructive to the social order which makes her seem dangerous and radical. Whether this is an accurate view is up for debate- many would argue that it is not, in principle, unreasonable for a woman who has been effectively sold as chattel to seek comfort from a man she isn't owned by, nor to kill her husband if he mistreats her given she has functionally no other recourse- but it's deffinitely something that affects how we view the Lannister children. For lack of a better term, the overtun window for the result of backstories like Tyrion's or Jaime's are set by how they act and the vague but generally sympathetic imaginings of the reader, while the window of reasonability for Cersei's behavior is affected by every female character who has been affected by the misogyny of Westeros and not, say, murdered multiple people over it or blown up a major religious center. (Also, unless you're an anarchist, the notion that a society is so messed up that "burn it down" could be in any way a rational response is troubling, especially when it has echoes of our own)
Next are the "what you are in the dark" and "pet/kick the dog" moments, as well as other character defining situations. These are often used as literary shorthand for showing off a characters 'real' personality since there will supposedly be few if any consequences, so we're primed to ascribe them rather more weight than every day actions.
Tyrion has several of these early on, such as giving advice to Jon or designing Bran a saddle which are both things that he could have easily avoided doing with 0 consequence- as such the audience is primed to view him as flawed but fundementally kind.
Jamie is interesting because arguably, he has more 'kick the dog' moments than pet the dog ones, especially in the early books. Pushing Bran doesn't actually qualify given what we learn later on (he pushes Bran specifically due to possible consequences of not doing so). Jaime is rude, and pushy, and acts like a douche regularily and with gusto. Whenever he thinks he can get away with it, and he can get away with it a lot. Even to his sister he's pushy, sometimes to the point of it coming off aggressive or even rapey although GRRM has stated that was never intended to seem that way. This means that the later chapters with moments of genuine heroism, being less of a dick, and the revelations of past moments that would qualify for this- like a younger Jaime almost desperately asking if they shouldn't do something about Aerys hurting Rhaella when he already knew the answer, or trying to make things easier for Brienne- hit harder. Especially with the mad king revelation- while you can't weigh good deeds against bad ones and expect them to cancel out, saving a bunch of people buys you a lot of good will. It paints a picture of someone who has been taught that he needs to lash out at the world, who has not usually been judged for his worst actions and maligned for his best and so has a very limited sense of morality but does, fundementally, want to do the right thing.
Cersei never gets any positive versions of these moments except relating to her children. We get kick the dog moments- like Obyrn's account of her hurting baby Tyrion or her killing her childhood companion for daring to overhear a prophecy- but the only times we see Cersei without artifice beyond her role as a mother she's spiteful, angry, and fearful to the point of paranoia. None of these are particularily likable traits. And there was opportunity for her to show more of them at some point, even if she was a later POV, but instead we're repeatedly shown her being uncaring at best. Even her moments with her children aren't entirely without artifice and she's clearly attached to them to an unhealthy degree. It's also implied in text that she doesn't realize she's doing this, with her thinking about how she treated Sansa "kindly" at one point. So as readers, we come into her POV predisposed to dislike her, and rather than being shown another side to her she just keeps kicking the dogs. And since we attach considerable importance to those consequenceless moments as measures of true character, it undermines any potential readings of Cersei as anything other than a spiteful woman who hasled directly to the kingdom's ruin. (Cont. in pt 2)
Pt 2
Then there's the narrative roles each character plays. Characters are constructed, act, and are used according to the roles they are meant to play in the narrative. What that role is can change, especially given how GRRM writes, but they're generally portrayed for what they were meant to be at the time.
This is the only section that is actually relevant to Tywin. Most people don't like Tywin in the way they like Tyrion or Jamie, they like him the same way people like Regina George from Mean Girls. He's powerful, charasmatic, dangerous, and a joy to see chew the scenery (especially on the show) but he's still a bad guy. He's just the Machiavellian prince archetype, the sort who's fun to watch, so people like him for his function in the story as "scary but suave bad guy" far more so than his actual character.
Tyrion is pretty clearly set up for either negative character development or to head into a darkest hour and eventually emerge from it a better person. Most likely the former. He's clearly a central character, a protagonist, even if he's very much not a hero. He's also a wisdom dispenser, which makes him idea to serve as catalysts for other characters to make poor decisions- as happens with Young Griff. This means there's a lot of rationalization on his part, and a great many chapters with good moments, because we need to be attached enough with him to stick with the character through his darker turns. He needs to be likable enough that we're cheering until the burning corpses pile up and we have that classic "wait, am I cheering the baddies???" moment.
Jamie is set up to have positive character devlopment, and there's a great deal of symbolism involving finding himself and figuring out who he is- which it isn't surprising he'd need to do given the developmental stage he was at when he was repeatedly traumatized. He's figuring out his conception of right and wrong, trying to be more honerable, etc. He is also, explicitly, a bait and switch in universe as well as in the text. As a Lannister he gets away with a lot, including the Bran push and the threatened baby yeet, but is reviled for killing Aerys and rather than asking him what happened everyone just made their own assumptions and ran with them. The reader is supposed to think him monsterous, even with the early glimpses there might be more going on with him, and gradually come to realize that while he has done terrible things he's done good ones' too.
Cersei is almost purely an antagonist. It's entirely possible that GRRM just wanted a POV in KL. Even when she is arguably the protagonist, the reader/watcher is not usually invited to empathize with her directly because she is an antagonist and generally self serving. GRRM does tend to flesh out characters later on, but Cersei doesn't have an obvious character arc and doesn't seem to have any notable characteristics from a story structure sense. There's no reason fo her to be more than an antagonist and a convenient vessel to keep us up to date on things, so she is treated as such. (I could write a whoooole essay on GRRM's issues with writing women at times and how convenient it is that he gave every other male Lannister a fairly well defined narrative role with a lot of weight and she gets "mother" and "jealous *garden tool*" and basically nothing else except for vague allusions to the mad king, but this is already long). Her function as a secondary character at best in the earlier books means that there wasn't a reason to bring her in as a POV character earlier. That seems more like sound writing decisions than something chosen deliberately to make Cersei unlikable or "trick" anyone into it.
TLDR: There's a lot of things that make people dislike Cersei. She is, objectively, at most a minorly worse person than her brothers. But the confluence of her acting out well beyond what most people would consider 'reasonable' for her past context, repeatedly showing that when there are no or limited consequences that she is cruel and unpleasant, and her role as both an antagonist and a less important character in general mean that there is less focus on humanizing her except when it's relevant to the story (like with the Faith plot where she became an object of sympathy to drive home the dangerous nature of the Faith). None of these are necessarily deliberate "tricks," they're mostly fairly natural or at least unintentional consequences of the world, character, and plot.
Tyrion was mistreated his whole life. Made to think he was some kind of monster just because he was a halfling. He deserves to pity himself lol, he was the only one that would pity him! Poor bastard. He deserved to be love and wanted to just be accepted by his family, and they constantly fucked him over. Cersei...fucked him over, just because he was short and ugly. Tyrion gave them what they deserved lol. I never once saw Tyrion as a villain.
Here before the Sept of baelor blew up 😂
When I first read the books I was shocked by the way Jamie is just obsessed by the thought of Cersei been sleeping with other man. In the end she is treated like a meaningless object by everyone around her.
@@theelectricprince8231 I don't think we can call it "normal" healthy, but they relationship was very far from healthy anyways.
Still probably better than how Cersei thinks of Jaime 🤣 Jaime seems to have some level of care, even if twisted. Cersei truly just sees Jaime as nothing more than a tool.
@@NotoriousMinion Yes, she is really bad too, worst even. Both of them are very complex characters, I really like them both as characters.
@@luisebraunsperger yeah they both only care about each other as narcissistic reflections of themselves
@NotoriousMinion That's not true. Jaime is monumentally stupid for the vast majority of his life, but his feelings for Cersei were genuine. He showed no interest in other women, even for political marriage. He was sent to Riverrun in the hopes he would hook at least one of the Tully girls but instead focused on Brynden war stories. He turned Pia away. Cersei didn't wait a fortnight before she had his bedroom replacement.
I never thought she was an irredeemable idiot. In my first reading i thought she was very unappreciated and smarter than people gave her credit for. Second reading I still felt that way, but realized she over estimated her intelligence. Both can be true at the same time.
She made some really savvy moves, but then got over confident
She's a woman of high-birth, from the wealthiest family, living in a medieval setting. She was given more opportunity to succeed than any other woman in the GoT universe.
We cant be putting modern morals and sensibilities on settings from this period. We can have (close to) gender equality in the 21st century because of what the generations previous provided us.
You’re completely wrong about this take. Yes Cersei has been treated wrongly by Robert and Tywin. However Cersei killed a girl because she wanted to marry Jamie. She gave another woman to Qyburn knowing he would torture her. She knew her son was beating Sansa and didn’t care.
Tyrion killed his girlfriend and his father, and I like him. Jaime pushed Bran out of a window. Arya became a serial killer with a premeditated hitlist. Robb betrayed his duties and got himself, his wife, his men, and his mom killed. Pedophilia is also common and normal in Westeros. Morally judging characters by actions alone is kinda difficult in a story where everyone is a murderer. And every character people like does not have to be “morally pure and good” or we’d all only like Ned, and even then I could argue how that’s not true either
@@uchewb3 Robb didn’t get his wife killed in the books, she is still alive.
I guess I just don't see how that differs from Tyrion, Tywin, or Jaime though. I'm not saying that Cersei is a good person, I'm saying that comparatively, we have someone like Tyrion who will kill Symon Silver Tongue for threatening him, or Jaime, to once again be a broken record, who will kill Bran without a second thought. I do think that Cersei is an exceptionally cruel person, but I don't understand the discordance between the reaction towards her and the reaction towards the rest of the Lannisters.
@@HillsAliveYT Symon Silver Tongue was portrayed specifically stupid. He enjoyed enormous social upgrade with Shae but it was never enough and he went as far as blackmailing the King's uncle in order to hurt another singer and take his position at the royal wedding. As for Bran, Jaime did a terrible thing to an innocent child but to the best of Jaime's knowledge Bran crept to the window to spy on them. As for Cersei, she routinely shows cruelty to weaker people around her with no rational purpose other than enjoy their fear, stress or pain (take Sansa, for example).
I think Cersei's problem lies in motivation and magnitude. In both the show and the books, she is very tough for petty reasons.
I think Sansa's wolf case represents it best.
I don't see any other member of her family demanding the death of an animal emblem of a noble house, in public (and a innocent one ) as a matter of pride (I think the book even implies that she wanted the skin of a wolf ). It is generating political tension unnecessarily.
The Lanister family is my favorite because all its members are very entertaining characters.
"Kevan will be hand so long as she gives up her regency and keeps herself out of the way". And...?
This is after he's certain the rumours were true, she has been sleeping with Jaime, and so on top of being responsible for starting the war that he's had to fight in and almost lost his son to, she has spit on his brother's lifetime of work to make their house respectable again. Work he contributed to. What would anyone with sense do differently in that scenario?
Almost all Lannisters' stupid decisions were responsible for the war.
What legacy? Tywin did as stupid things as Cersei, if not worse. The red wedding is far more stupid and has far worse impact on their house respectability than anything Cersei did.
@@adapienkowska2605 Tywin and Jaime's actions started when Tyrion was taken.
The war started in microcosm when Bran was flung from the tower Yes, Jaime's unilateral decision), accelerated when Tyrion was taken, accelerated further when Ned was arrested and began in earnest when Ned's head was taken.
ALL of this stemmed from Cersei bedding Jaime. And for most of his life she has him wrapped around her finger. If she bore Robert's children and insisted Jaime be sent away from her back to Casterly Rock after the Rebellion, the war doesn't happen.
@sardonically-inclined7645 I disagree. The war started because of Robert's dreadful misrule. He allowed corruption to fester in every nook and cranny of King's Landing. Jaime going away won't change the fact that the Lannisters have all but seized control. Anyone who tried to steer the ship back onto course, they would be killed off or chased away. No to stop the war from happening Robert has to pull his out his arse, or someone else sits the Iron Throne.
And he never made the same demands of Tywin despite the fact that Tywin made decisions that made alliances between the Lannisters and the majority of the kingdoms an impossibility. "His brother's lifetime of work" was always going to be destroyed because he did a piss poor job of actually raising his children and his lone method of dealing with his enemies was brutalizing them so viciously that he guaranteed a blood feud between them for generations to come. Not to mention, if Tywin's life's work was to make House Lannister respectable again, it's hard to imagine a world where he didn't already completely destroy that goal by partnering with the Boltons and Freys. If Kevan had said something to Tywin at any point when he was making mortal enemies of the Martells, the Tullys, the Baratheons, or the Starks, then I might see his point when it comes to Cersei, but he didn't, so it's a double standard that bothers me.
@@HillsAliveYT Name the decisions Tywin made with less justifiable motives and worse outcomes than creating a succession crisis thereby beginning the war, attempting to murder a liege lords son in his own home which accelerated that war, and allowing the killing of the only leverage you had to sue for peace, in the current story.
Well this is an unsurprisingly embattled comment section 😂
I really miss the early days of the HBO show when it comes to Cersei! For a little while, they went out of their way to create sympathetic angles for her, deliberately complicating her by giving her grace notes which shine as some of my favorite scenes - her visiting Bran and Cat; her heart-to-heart with Robert; everything during the battle of blackwater. It was an exceptional portrayal of someone strangled by the social expectations of her gender, bitterly replicating those expectations on those under her, but pitying others all the same... Shame the writers kinda forgot about that side of her later.
For me, Tywin Lannister is just the Walter White of Westeros; I'm not surprised that Cersei is treated like the Skylar.
" No respect for women, except for Joanna" Well, Cersei lost her mother to the birth of Tyrion, as a young teen/ pre- teen.
MOTHERLESS children are a big theme here, especially motherless girls, who have no one to teach them how to navigate female existence in the essentially respectless world of highborn ladies especially.
"I still think Jaime is an irredeemable character--" I'M NOT ALONE! Or, at the very least, I don't think Jaime is on some sort of redemption arc as so many think.
It's entirely possible to be oppressed, abused, rightfully angry about it, and generally misunderstood...and still be a giant piece of crap. That's pretty much Cersei in a nutshell.
I really think Jamie threatening to trebuchet the baby was the bluff he needed to make to make sure the choices were understood. Negotiation and threats, but not a siege!
*_"I still think Jaime is an irredeemable character who will threaten to use a baby as a cannonball in order to get his way."_* That's fair. The threat was certainly a regression to his old ways, when he seemed to be on his way to becoming a better person. Not necessarily a good person, but a better person. Although it will unquestionably get him in trouble with LSH as there were witnesses, do you think Jaime would actually go through with that threat. I'm not a 100% certain that he would.
Yes he did threaten Edmure, but it was just that. A threat. He wasn't actually going to do any of that, he wouldn't be allowed to because Riverrun was claimed by the Freys.
@@mixkid3362 Come on. The reason that you just gave is so flimsy. He wouldn't be allowed? The Lannisters run the Freys. Jaime just slapped one of them in a previous POV chapter. In the same way that I am not 100% sure that Jaime would use Edmure's baby as a cannonball, I'm not 100% sure that he wouldn't. I probably lean more on wouldn't, but the fact that literally moments earlier, Jaime threatened violence and made good on that threat by slapping a Frey, should certainly make us doubt his intentions.
@Mic-Mak OK I'll concede that my point was poor. However, I know he would not because of the vow he made to Catelyn that he wouldn't harm any other Tullys. It meant nothing to him in the beginning of COK, but in AFFC it does. So even though he threatened Edmure, he did so only to intimidate the kind Edmure into relinquishing Riverrun peacefully.
@@mixkid3362 Yes, that is one of the main arguments for Jaime not doing it, but I'd argue that the core driver of that vow, is how much he was inspired by Brienne and her commitment to being an honourable "knight". Without Brienne I don't think he cares as much, if at all. Also remember that Catelyn's deal was officially made with Tyrion, who was acting as Hand.
She trusted him more than Jaime. All that being said, we can't be a 100% sure either way, and it's fair to argue that making threats alone is the beginning of breaking his promise, especially when he intends on his threats to be believed.
I also suspect that his esteem for Brienne may go down once he finds out that she tricked him into a trap. Though I hope she will understand, and my guess is, she wil defend him. We'll see.
@@Mic-Mak I think Brienne is going to have to put LSH down for good.
A lot of people think that just because tywin is calculating or whatever, he is less of an asshole.
I love Cercei's chapters. Her perspective, her complexities, it is so delicius to read!!!
The best chapters in this entire series imo
Yeah I hadn't read her chapters in forever so the re-read was wild, I was very much like sis you are so crazy and you are so valid.
@@HillsAliveYT yeah! When she think about her handmaid and her paranoid (valid tbh if you think it was varys all the way with the green hand coins) and so on
5:57 I don't know; I don't see tyrion eating people's kids after sleeping with them. Which I would say ties back into the more prominent difference between cersei and her family. Tyrion and jamie both have moments in their past and present that suggest they may have been better people if certain situations played out differently. Cersei has practically the opposite depicted in her story. As for tywin, he has the benefit of a multi decade background of supposedly being one of the most competent people in westeroes. Cersei also lacks that.
Hold on, are you referring to Robert raping Cersei as her “sleeping” with him? Yikes.
@@hi-ls6lt no, more so I'm reffering to the time she avoided actual sex with felatio. Odd that that's you're takeaway from everything I wrote.
Just about to start watching and I'm really curious what your take on this is gonna be. I definitely think Cersei is a complex and fascinating character, but I do feel like I hate her for good reasons (she is a bad player, paranoid to the most extreme, and is very cruel to anyone who tries to love her or she thinks is her enemy/a threat, and she hates all women who aren't herself and Myrcella, and she's homophobic). I still really enjoy her chapters though, and the walk of shame has always been incredibly moving. Let's see where this goes!
Update after watching - fair points, and I always like seeing you bring new thoughts to the series, but overall I still mostly disagree. My biggest points about her being not as smart as she thinks she are - 1. Aurane Waters. 2. Pulling Joff off the BoBW field 3. Never being able to admit she's wrong and course correct, she just keeps pushing.
I disagree with Jamie pushing Bran as starting the civil war, that was more due to Joff's failed catspaw and then Cat with Littlefinger and the dagger and Tyrion and then Lysa lying about Jon Arryn. AND Joff killing Ned. I feel like if we're putting that on Jamie, then we'd need to put Ned on Cersei since both were really due to Joff, not either of them. I also greatly disagree her bringing the faith militant back isn't a significant error that will change the course of history. There's a reason it was banned and we're only just starting to realize why, and she just brought it back without looking into it first. The ramifications are as dangerous as the civil war itself, if not more so due to their extremism. I will agree though that if Tywin had actually educated her she may have known the history better. But it does appear she can read, so my sympathy for her is limited.
She also has next to no interest in politics that she deems as underneath her. All of which are showing time and time again she needs to pay attention to, but she still refuses to due to her own self righteousness and paranoia and pettiness.
One thing she definitely got right but screwed over on though was trying to eliminate Bronn. She really does just end up with the worst allies lol. And I agree 100% about Kevan. He was awful to her. I assume a lot of it was due to him realizing the incest was true and it just disgusted him with her and Jaimie.
Yess...The different standards for Sansa and Cersei vs everyone else are crazy. I am glad that I am not the only one who sees it. The thing that drives me mad is how Tiwin´s moronic choices that alienate theri family from any support are seen as "cool" and "strong", while the same behaviour by Cersei, with the same results, is suddenly dumb.
Does it though?
I believe I agreed to this in your earlier videos a year or more ago. I might tweak the “Cercei is smart “ part with “everyone else is as dumb or dumber than Cercei, including Petyr, Tywin, and Varys; but mostly agree.
It’s been sometime so I’ll resuggest looking with the same eye at Gregor and Petyr.
Gregor’s men’s story timeline is flawed, maybe act it out with a game with time mechanics like DnD or actors? Guys, generally, don’t go from disinterested and eating to sat back down and eating in a couple of minutes.
For Petyr, Sansa’s unkiss with Sandor is supposed to show us she misinterprets mens’ kisses, specifically Petyr’s. Petyr’s kiss is paternal, since he knows Sansa is his daughter. The hairnet was supposed to kill Tyrion so Sansa wouldn’t have to sleep with him. Dontos was killed more about his willingness to betray Sansa than keep a secret. Petyr doesn’t really want Sansa to marry Harry, that’s just a ruse; if Petyr were to survive, he wouldn’t thanks to Sansa, he would have stopped it. He just needs Harry there to accept Lord of the Vale and swear to Robert’s bastard Robert aka Robin. Petyr’s only mission in life is his daughter Sansa.
In case you’re wondering, Robert is Henry the 8th to the Tully sisters’ Boyelyn sisters. Both kids named Robert are named after their father. Cat’s life mirrors her daughter-in-law. Apparently , they both have a thing for injured guys, Cat’s at the Inn where she captures Tyrion. She also captures Robert and Petyr there. Lysa had her baby at Kingslanding, where Petyr isn’t stupid enough to have an affair, remember the lady Petyr was giving the run around too. He definitely wasn’t going to sleep with the sister he loathed who was married to the Hand under Varys and the gossiping court of vipers, since again he didn’t love her.
It's easy to forget when reading Cersei that we have all the answers to mysteries that elude and terrify her. Her prophecy fixation leads her down dead ends but otherwise she's correct to be paranoid.
I really appreciate 2 things about your channel in particular:
Having a persistently fresh take on the series, not just reproducing all the famous fan theories and views
And not spending half the analysis recapping the plot!
Great video 👍
Part of me really wonders how the Lannister‘s and particularly Cersei would be different if they were a Dornish Noble family
Even the Dornish would not accept incest. So i think that they would sent Jamie away to be fosterd by another family and Cersie would be guarded by a host of handmaidens so she cant go after her other brother(s). The heir of their house would not be accepted if she partakes in incest.
She might not do the incest as Long as she can the head of the House and most Likely would’ve have gotten a better Education
Bingo. I think all of the three Lannister siblings are incredibly complex and lively, interestingly written characters, and her positioning was made the way it is for narrative reasons.
Exactly! I never thought of Cercei as less intelligent than her brothers, a major issue is that she is not respected because she happens to be a woman in a high position surrounded by men. It understandibly fustrates her and makes her bitter. I honestly think if Tywin would've taken her more seriously she possibly could've done something very helpful for their house, she is quick and sharp, I just think the situation gave her many disadvantages.
She doesn’t think long term though. She gives an army to the high sparrow so he will cancel her debt, not realizing she just put a whole lot of power in the hands of someone who is ultimately against her.
Well, I kinda agree that she isn't less intelligent than the rest of here family on avarage. But the major issue isn't that she isn't respected because she is a women. She is less capable than a lot of her family members, because as a women she wasn't taught the kind of politicking she tries to do, and she is unwilling to accept that she isn't equiped for this.
I don't hate her in the books or the TV series. She is descending into complete madness bit by bit, totally convinced she is right at every wrong turn - she's a GREAT character.
considering how much cersei *needed* robert to die, the assassination plot seens really harebrained. if any number of possibilities where robert didnt get gored to death by a helpful boar didnt happen, she was absolutely toast when he returned to KL.
also, i do think that its basically text that Cersei is a lot less politically astute & able than both Tyrion & Tywin (though a lot of that would be down to their stunted education). Tyrion is absolutely not as smart as he thinks he is, but like the example you use of him making a destructive, poor decision is Tyrion knowingly presuing reckless destruction, whereas cersei frequently bumbles her way into fuckups
There is a big difference between the bad decisions made by Cersei and the bed decisions made by her father and brother.
The Lannister Men are tackling real problems that need solution, and sometimes act recklessly in pursuit of those solutions.
Cersei makes bad decisions in conflicts that only exist in her mind. In her clumsy and failed attempt to assassinate Bron, she made an enemy where none existed before. Bron was rich, fat, and happy at Stokeworth. Cersei's notion that he was a threat that needed to be eliminated was purely a product of her imagination.
Her clumsy attempt to undermine Margeary Tyrell was completely unnecessary, and threatens to undermine the stability of the entire kingdom.
A new King ascends the throne, his wife becomes the Queen, and his mother goes from being Queen to being the Dowager Queen.
This is the natural order of things. If Cersei is smart, this change of status does not necessarily mean a loss of political power. She isn't smart, though.
And, mostly because she doesn't think that she has spent as much time as she deserved being the center of attention, she schemes to destroy her daughter in law, giving 0 fucks along the way that the Lannister/Tyrell coalition is what is holding the Kingdom together.
Her successful assassination of Robert was dumb luck, bordering on bad writing. Her plan was to get Robert more drunk than he usually gets while on a boar hunt, where he would hopefully take a fatal wound. 🙄
This is 3 different layers of uncertainty. Cersei basically had to roll a 6 three times for that to work.
Game of Thrones is about how women are mistreated by the men in their world, their response to this mistreatment, and how it ultimately effects the world around them.
Cringe.
Cersei couldn't have POV chapters sooner cause of all the secrets she was keeping. Certain characters just can't have POV chapters, or at least not until they're in a position where their main secrets have already been laid bare and nothing else shocking can come out. Another example is littlefinger. If he had a POV chapter, you'd know everything that was going on and there'd be no surprises.
Yeah Cersei is so SMART
Arming the faith militiant. This destabalizes the feudal system in general and the faith becomes a powerfull political force that can defy the kings orders.
2. Refusing to pay the Iron Bank, just to build a fleet of warships. As a result the IB backs Stannis.
3. Dont defending the Reach against the Ironborn. Dragonstone has already been abandoned and has no strategic value, while the Ironborn could threaten the westerlands as well.
4. Targeting Margery. Tommen has to marry anyway in order to produce an heir. In addition Cersei made the Tyrells her enemy and if Stannis is smart he could marry Shareen to Loras or Wilas.
5. Filling the small council with people that are idiots or not trustworthy.
Minor mistakes
Killing the high septon, because she thaught he was an ally of Tyrion
2. Thinking Bronn is a threat because he named his wife's child tyrion.
3. Giving the heir of Stockworth to Qyburn.
4. Killing all the guards of Tyrions cell, without questioning them before.
5. Sending Mace Tyrells to the Stormlands. She should have sended him to Riverlands instead because there are no castles that could be claimed by Reachmen.
6. Thinking a Hand of the King can be a hostage.
7. Dont listening to Kevan. She should have made In Lord Rowan Hand.
8. Thinking Kevan is a Tyrell spy.
9. Telling all your plans to Taena Merryweather.
I think the problem with this is that we only have Cersei's word that she was denied an education in politics, and we know that Cersei's perspective is at least skewed. For example, is it really the washerwomen's fault that Cersei's dresses do not fit her, or is she putting on weight because of excessive eating and drinking, and does not want to admit it? Was Cersei really denied the opportunity to study politics, or did she not take advantage of those opportunities, or did she simply fail to learn the lessons she was taught, and now she wants to blame someone else? Blaming others for her mistakes is something she does quite a bit, after all.
GD hills alive, you've done it again 😂 good job.
I don’t think we’re “tricked” into hating Cersei. She’s awful and abusive to literally everyone she encounters, friends and enemies alike. However, I do think we are tricked into how much we hate her and disrespect vs the rest of the lannisters, particularly Tywin. And it genuinely pisses me off to hear same fans who can’t shut up about what a political genius Tywin is say that Cersei is an unhinged idiot.
Tywin is ruthless and his plans are often successful, but not because he’s particularly clever. It’s because people continuously underestimate just how audaciously brutal he is willing to be. The red wedding is a classic example of winning a battle by blowing yourself up and then losing the war. People think of it as a win because of just how sore the loss was for the Starks and they fail to see the position Tywin has put himself in. Yeah, he defeated the Starks, but he had make allies with a family with relatively little power, poor standing, and they become even more hated by violating the most sacred rite in Westeros- guest rite- and committing treason. In Westerosi legends, the most brutal endings go to traitors and those that hurt guests. This tells all the other noble families that the lannisters are equally untrustworthy as the Freys and very unattractive allies to make. So no one will be likely to trust them or help them, and those that do will have contingency plans to quickly separate from any alliances (like the Tyrells). The only allies the Lannisters have after the red wedding are the Freys and the Boltons have proven themselves more than willing to betray their sworn lords and will just as easily abandon the Lannisters as soon as it becomes more convenient. This would be monumentally stupid even if the Lannisters had stable power, but they are facing rebellion from Stannis and eventually invasion from Dany, and Tywin reveals that their family’s source of wealth has been gone for years and they are drowning in debt. But knowing this, Tywin chose to alienate all potential allies in the country. And yeah, he “neutralized” the Starks but he also brutalized the beloved noble family of the largest kingdom in Westeros that is known for how loyal they are and how long they keep a grudge. Slaughtering their people like that created a grudge that will be remembered for decades, maybe even centuries. Cersei knew not to kick that hornets nest. Despite her hatred for the Starks she didn’t even consider killing Ned, and openly acknowledges that they need the Starks. Tywin says “killing Ned was the dumbest thing we could have done” and a year later decides to kill not just one stark, but break guest rite, incite treason, kill two Starks, desecrate their bodies, and then marry his son to their beloved princess that he’s been holding hostage to be violated and forced to bear the name and children of the family that murdered hers. What Tywin did left him friendless and radioactive, broke, and surrounded by a dozen enemies he didn’t have before and winter is coming. Tywin is a vindictive, shortsighted brute, not a brilliant strategist and he is no smarter than Cersei.
The gold mines of Casterly Rock drying up was a show-only invention... and one that didn't even make that much sense. Generally speaking, Hill's videos are about the books unless explicitly stated otherwise. That being said, Tywin was intelligent enough to not want to start a war, but he also knew that once the war had been started by Cersei and Joffery by killing the head of a great house (the same inciting incident of Robert's Rebellion that displaced the previous ruling dynasty) he had no choice but to full send and completely commit to ending it as soon as possible. The threats of Renly/Stannis/Balon and eventually Aegon required Tywin to take such extreme measures to end at least one theater of war so he could focus on the others, especially since Robb had managed to outmaneuver him in the westerlands and riverlands. Just so happened that Robb's Stark honor led him to marry Jeyne and break the betrothal to the Freys, essentially breaking two marriage alliances in one fell swoop as Roose had also married a Frey girl to gain a marriage alliance with the Starks and gain a position of greater power within the new Kingdom of the North. Then Roose did his little duskendale business and served Robb on a platter to Tywin. Everyone likes to pretend that the Red Wedding was planned by Tywin, but it was orchestrated by Walder and Roose. Tywin's part was just promising them pardons and favors.
Tywin didn't really approve of robb and catelyns body being desicrated.
People always take Tywin's quote that "i dont distrust you bc your a woman. I distrust you bc your not as smart as u think u r" At face value but thats exactly what someone says when their discriminating against you bc of your identity. Like tywin isn't either
People in this fandom are so reductive. They hear Tywin say that Cersei _is not as smart as she thinks she is_ and they _immediately_ latch on to that as if it was gospel truth.
They hear Sansa call herself _a stupid little girl who never learns_ and again immediately latch on to that as if it was plain truth _nuance be damned!_
I suppose its because many of them have secret misogynistic thoughts and attitudes that its easy for them to latch on to anything that fits in with their worldview.
Ned Stark suffers from _severe PTSD_ over the murder of the Targaryen children and is consumed by his own fear for Jon.
It is because of this he tells Cersei about the bastardy of her children and advises her to run because he doesn't want to see more dead children.
Somehow the most of the fandom misses the nuance and context _by a freaking mile!_ and starts calling him an honour driven idiot.
After Robb, suffering grief over Bran and Rickon's 'deaths' and delirious due to a wound and milk of the poppy, sleeps with Jeyne Westerling.
The next day he's faced with the consequences. He knows that Jeynes marriage prospects just fell through the floor because of his actions and feels honour bound to marry her _to right the wrong_ he has committed.
Immediately people starts calling him a horny idiot.
*_I seriously think that half of the people in this fandom does not understand the series and would be happier with Disney_*
It also doesn't help that the show runners were just like these fans. Cersei thinks a child like Margaery is a master manipulator, so in the show, she is. Arya is a tomboy and doesn't get along with her sister, so that must mean she thinks all other girls are stupid. A lot of people were introduced to the series from the show, so their opinions are colored by it.
OMG totes, one thing that stuck out to me in the Cersei chapter re-reads is that Margaery actually hasn't put it together that Cersei set her up even AFTER she has been arrested by the Faith. I guess you could speculate that she's faking it, but god knows why she would be at that point, and it seems to be a pretty strong clue that Cersei has completely projected an imaginary personality onto Margaery that doesn't match with reality at all.
Ooh good for you, Hills Alive, to bring up the prophecy obsession. Cersei keeps falling into the trap of thinking that the prophecy will work itself out in a literal or obvious fashion when we can see from other prophecies that that almost never happens,
Okay, ridiculously long response.
Some counter points to Cersei's decisions not being that bad:
"Kevan is too good for the job as hand" according to Varys, except he wasn't the hand but the acting REGENT, lord protector of the realm etc, and he fixed things when Cersei ISN'T THERE to contradict his work and alienate allies and accomplices, without her around Kevan stabilises the relationship with the faith by granting concessions and begins mending the relationship with the Tyrells.
Plus, Kevan didn't refuse her outight, he had requirements for him to be hand, like Cersei going to the westerlands and taking care of Casterly Rock like Tywin planned, but Cersei refuses the idea outright, and doesn't come up with any compromises, no negotiation at all, even Robbert knew it was wisest to placate people politically. She then refuses the advice he gives her, like appointing hands that could be of great use to her, because they're not westermen ie: already loyal to her.
Besides, her main reason for wanting Kevan as hand is because Jaime said no, and she counts on Kevan mainly because she believes he'd be as obedient to her as he was to Tywin, her thoughts on the matter is literally "the hand does not argue with the head". It's for that reason she later appoints Ser Harys Swyft as Hand, he's a toadie, little more than that. She later names another hand, Owen Merryweather
Some foolish mistakes of Cersei post her father's demise:
1. Halting loan payments to the ironbank, to instead build warships that can support her own powerbase by decreasing the needs for the Redwyne fleet who are amongst her allies.
2. Refusing returning loans to the Faith, which alienates them, has the puppet high septon assasinated for fear of what he might know and doesn't, unlike Tyrion before her, have a new one appointed that can maintain her interests, which leads to a very anti-lannister high septon in the shape of the High Sparrow, who imprisons her and has her humiliated for all of King's Landing to see.
3. Appointing Aurane Waters to the rank of master of ships, ignoring that he has zero reason to be loyal to the Lannister regime (and in fact fought for Stannis at Blackwater) all because she likes how he looks (similar to Rhaegar) and she thinks he wants her. And it comes back to bite her when he literally steals the navy during her imprisonment, depriving both her and any allies she has left of the fleet and the manpower that comes with it.
4. Actively ignores the councel she gets from her loyalists, like Pycelle and Kevan, the former advises her against halting the loans to the Iron Bank and after she has them built anyway advises to choose people of proven skill and loyalty be captains. But instead Cersei has a bunch of unproven youths be captains of crews of brigands and criminals (what could possibly go wrong?) on the advice of Aurane.
Cersei's main intelectual flaw (other than letting herself get ruled by paranoia and having a fuse shorter than a smurf baby), is that she is very shortsighted in her decision making, with one glaring example being her reaction to Kevans' advice about hands instead of him: But she doesn't want either Mathis Rowan or Randyll Tarly as hand because they're presently Tyrell loyalists, overlooking the idea that by rewarding them and keeping them close, she would over time make them loyal to her instead and weaken the Tyrells by removing valuable subjects. We see a similar scenario play out amongst the ironborn after the Shield Islands are taken: Euron Greyjoy makes former rivals at the kings moot and supporters of his rivals into Lords of the new holdings, which makes them more loyal to him and weakens his rivals that could othervise backstab him whilst boosting his popularity amongst the Ironborn by presenting himself as generous with the spoils of war. Even Victarion can see (part of) what's happening and pretty much everyone thinks he's an idiot, so Cersei should be able to understand the idea, she certainly throws around titles by having the Ketteblack brothers knighted for no other reason than she wants to use them.
And to add inslt to injury, Despite being this close to power all these years and seeing it be used and the successes of others, Cersei has learned nothing about how others wield it, but thinks she can outdo everyone before her by using brute force, as she has not even a base understanding of diplomacy other than using her body, her father knew well enough to placate the Tyrells with titles and holdings, doesn't get that mending old wounds is a requirement to stabilize the realm (Robert got the idea) and fails to see that Myrcella's marriage to the Martells removes an obvious opponent and provides a bit of stability to the realm in a time of crisis, Robb got that idea.
Littlefinger says it best: "She (Cersei) wants power, but have no notion of what to do with it when she gets it"
As for the respect Cersei is owed for her station, Cersei forgets that it's not just rank that matters, people see the person who wields it, and judges them for it and their actions.
Case 1: Her grandfather Tytos was Warden of the West and Lord paramount of the westerlands, but j-he let everyone walk all over him, the lords took note, abused his generosity and the westerlands and house Lannister suffered for it.
Case 2: Aerys was king of the realm, but mad as a hatter and did many of Cersei's mistakes, being quick to anger and disrespected the Wrong people in favour of whatever he fancied.
Case 3: Herself, Kevan views her as unfit for ruling after how she raised Joffrey, which she is schooled on by him.
Cersei literally doesn't show anyone any respect herself which goes a long way for whether or not you're respected in turn, Cersei ignores how a lot of the realm was shocked by Aerys apperance at Harrenhal (unwashed, unshaven and ugly as sin) or how little they thought of Joffrey as he misruled.
A shining example of her lacking respect for others is her treatment of her uncle Kevan who was her father's righthand man, she calls him verbatim "no more than one of my father's household knights", she sees a man who has helped her father for decades, her uncle, a seasoned warrior, tactician and politician, as little less than a servant with a blade, ignoring all the work he's done over the years.
Thank you so much for this video essay! While reading the books all those memes about Cersei-being-dumb made me question if her character is in fact that simple knowing that Gr. Martin would never do anything so plain and straight-forward, there must be a message behind this ( not taking her inner misogyny/ egocentrism/wannabejaime conflict into account ofc, this is also a very fascinating and complicated part of her character that i love). Like c’mon guys cersei cannot be JUST that comedic evil dumb sister that was only created to oppose tyrion. Thank your for making her character more clear to me!!
Cersei isn’t redeemable because she continues to double down on negative actions and behaviors and run from opportunities for redemption. She manipulates and lies to cover up lies, she is possessive of her brother, is hateful without cause towards the other (at first), and is decisively misogynistic despite understanding first hand the struggles women in Westeros endure. Not to mention her extreme paranoia (not entirely her fault) has left her unbalanced and outwardly sadistic. She isnt the paragon of evil some fans make her to be, but the key difference from Jamie is that Jamie is seeking to change behaviors. If anything, Tyrion is undergoing the same downfall as Cersei did but does the whole process as a POV character. I think fans are more harsh on her because 1) her role in Ned’s death, a popular character 2) her disgust towards Tyrion, another popular character, and 3) her attempted manipulation of Jamie. To me, she espouses the opposite behaviors of Brienne that have made her such a likeable one, and while i dont entirely blame Cersei for the way she is, and I see Tyrion emulating her self-destructive choices and morally repugnant actions, I have a hard time excusing Cersei as a product of forces outside her control
I don't see the delayed POV as a 'trick'.
I think Joffery does more to harm my opinion of Cersei than a lot of other things. Who else had as much influence on him?
Then there's the death of Melara - an 11 year old murderer is vastly different than a grown person becoming a murderer.
The whole family is full of broken, cruel people though, and I can see why 'Cersei is the Worst' can be annoying if paired with ' But Jaime/Tyrion is the best'. Cersei is never portrayed as kind, grateful, loyal, politically savvy or even particularly rational. Not seeing her motivations does make this effect stronger, perhaps, but it's also that there aren't any positive interactions with her in any POV. She's not seen with respect or approval by anyone except Jamie, and that relationship is clearly warped. I think that lack also makes it very hard to sympathize with her.
Didn't work on me I only hate Bloodraven😂
It's funny how you make a great point in the video that Cersei is just as bad as her brothers and her father, and you flat out say "she's a villain everyone, don't get me wrong" and you rightfully discuss that the double standards towards her that fans don't give to Jaime and Tyrion because the text uses the POV trap to trick readers into not easily seeing her side, is blatantly obvious and that's the point of this video. And yet there are people in comments going "NO! I don't agree with you! She's not misunderstood! She's a horrible and stupid person!" like....... dude 🤦🏼♀
I agree with everything you said. By the time of AFFC she is clearly insane, and we can see in AGOT that she was quite capable before. What do you think will happen to her in future books?
(Trigger warning ⚠️ Dany rant incoming)
In terms of my good sis Cersei, at least she was in our face about it, all of it, even the brother fucking. You’ll Dany fans will be real mad when D&D ARENT wrong and Dany goes full tyrant, then what? She’s gonna do things Cersei could only dream of-But Dany will actually do it-It’s gonna happen. So with that being said, Dany is a liability for the greater scheme of things wholeheartedly. She’s a literal child that’s education was learning about people she had no presence around, whatsoever, listening to pipe dreams of a throne in a room she would later burn down herself, all because it was “hers”. She either A) is too young to fully know how to process trauma or B) is subconsciously lashing out with impulsive and destructive behavior and decision making, because in all fairness, the girl has some baggage. But that doesn’t justify breaking every spoke of “the wheel” with Dragon breath. She has destroyed wealth of entires families (Wealth that was going to be needed to the recovery effort) just with a simple word. She can’t even offer up a *direct* legitimate heirs without it being a contorted monster, so it’s like ermmmm do we really want to burn over a queen who’s like likely be eradicated in our lifetimes if we don’t die first ourselves and when she croaks, we will have another succession war, and loose thousands of more men in early winter, OOORRRR are we gonna let the crazy lady in the red keep stay, keep the status quo, and let her birth that inbred lil golden lion and play queen regent in the confines of the Red Keep where she will serve the rest of her days as a figurehead and give power to a well versed council? Cercei has everything going for her in theory, except the dragons. That’s the only reason Dany is in the story- is to be a catalyst to a eureka moment for people who love YOUNG tig bitty dragon riders. Cerceis rule in nothing but name could keep stability more then Danys 75+ years heirless, fearful, destructive reign ever could. After all isn’t she trying to build a world wide utopia??? How is she gonna do that in the iron throne? She can’t. She’ll have to fly. So then what? We put someone to manage her throne like the hand or someone else? Well what if they end up being a fair and effectively ruler in her place? Sprinkle in just a tad of that infamous Targaryen madness and that person is turned into dragon nuggets. So she’s gonna kill or struggle to not feel the need to kill everyone around her until she’s alone. A beloved elder of her family once said “A Targaryen alone in the role is a terrible thing” and that’s exactly what we’d see happen sooner or later. Long rambling short, I’m gonna shave to go with Cersei on this one.
loving this take! I’ve never thought about that like this before and you got me convinced! 💖
In star wars legends continuity Mara Jade is emperor palpatine's personal assasin, gaining her the title as the emperor's hand. Her whole early life is trying to always outdo Darth vader to replace him as Palpatine's apprentice and the empire's enforcer. She commits some of the most cruel and horrible things in her quest for power. Her need to please Palpatine is so great that after his death, he sends her a final telepathic command to kill Luke Skywalker, which she STILL willfully follows. Mara Jade later went on to fall in love with Luke. They later got married and had a son Ben Skywalker. She went on to become one of the greatest Jedi of all time. She eventually Died trying to stop the new Lady of the Sith Lumiya. What does this have to do with your video you may ask? If someone like Mara Jade could go from being an assassin of the most evil being in star wars, to a Jedi Master who died trying to stop a new evil, then someone like Cersei can also be redeemed.
Yeah but redemption requires self awareness and admittance of wrongdoing. These are things that Cersei Lannister is completely devoid of. She will never be redeemed.
Cersei is the best ! Her demise in the last season of the show really pissed me off cuz she was such a fantastic character up until the shows stopped having book materials. Of course Lena Headey carries the performance for sure but even in the book she is a true descendant of the lion and shares many if not more qualities of the House of Lannister than her brothers.
I think I actually "LIKE" Cersei and Tyrion for the same reason - GREAT characters.
*I would not get near either one in person!* (Not sure I want to hang with Jamie either, except maybe if I were fighting in his forces he seems to know when to have a battle or siege and when not too do that, also he seems to be growing into the role of Kings Guard Commander...he has habits of honor left even if he has been tortured over his own sincerity since he slew the MK)
Cersei is power mad, entitled, disappointed, paranoid, and seems to be there to show what a bad idea it is to let fear of what might be take you over, it makes you power mad and eventually turns any positive urges like protecting your children into evil, and before that, stupidity - because it is Tyrion's idea to send Tommen out of danger of the incoming army, to make it less easy to kill him, she decides that Tyrion WANTS him dead - when at that moment he is fully on Team Lannister. Likewise she really should be trying to make sure Tommen and Margery stay married until he is old enough to get her a grandchild.. .she should send her the moon tea herself!
Tyrion by contrast does not believe in prophecy, and he won't let himself believe in dragons until he sees one, and wants nothing in life but revenge. He is entitled and heartbroken and, like his sister, convinced his worth is never acknowledged - when it is, he is competent at many things - but just not by the people he wants to show him love and loyalty. So instead he is a vengeful busted by choice. He is starting to like Penny a little. She is so innocent and she is REALLY used and tricked and picked on because she's a dwarf, the way whiny rich boy Tyrion always claimed he was. Is this enough to get him redeemed by the end? Even if he is George's fave, I am saying no. The best is that he will be a good intel resource for Dany.
Self pitying - yes. That's what I left out about Tyrion! But he would not be seen as any kind of idiot. He's no idiot. He is partly there to show that even in a medieval tech world a person of LEARNING, if placed right, can wield influence.
She makes mistakes because she's extremely emotionally damaged, not because she's stupid.
You can be both
Always appreciate your takes! Refreshing and thought provoking
[Reads title]: Ok, Hill’s Alive … I am intrigued.
Cersei is so evil man. This isn’t even funny. She abuses children, she abuses Tyrian, and later she also abuses and manipulates Jamie. There is so little that’s redeeming about this character. She manipulates and abuses so many men. Lancel was a literal child when she seduced him. She killed Robert and had his children executed. People who do the things she dose do not have good intentions. Being a past victim dose not excuse you from victimizing others.
I don't hate Cersei, her chapters are super entertaining, especially when drinking along!
Cersei is one of my favorite villains across all media. 💅
Lol cersei was the kinda person to abuse a new born baby and throw her friend down a well.
And Bran is the kinda a person to throw an 8 year old of a tower, while Tyrion is the kinda person that rapes an abused slave and then feel sorry for himself
“What do you think-“ YES
I get the well thing. I remember being a child and feeling too much, and doing dumb stuff. I believe Cersei hates herself for that and being a woman so unconsciously she wants Maggy's prophecy to become true. That's how I read her feast arc. Selfhate is an awful thing.
I just find torturing women in the dungeons and implicating Margaery's little cousins on her sex plot extremely baffling, gross and just evil. More that drowning an entire town, more than crippling a child and more than raping a slave. By the end of feast I find Cersei more evil than the other Lannisters, the makings of a mad woman but evil still.
Cersei thinks she is smarter than she is, but it doesn’t mean she’s “not smart”. She is smart. Sexism means that her actions are judged more harshly by the audience and other characters, but that doesn’t change her inflated sense of her own competence. I don’t think we see a meaningfully “devolved” Cersei by AFFC, she was always pretty terrible from what little we know of her childhood.
Hill’s alive drops I video, I drop what I’m doing
consistently the best asoiaf commentator
I imagine grrm sees a video like this and goes "yeeees, finally someone gets it"
I haven't finished all the books, so I might have gathered this from the show in the first couple of books, But I think it's pretty clear that she is the smartest one of the family and she just has a huge chip on her shoulder because of Tywin treating her like shit because she's a woman, and that no matter how smart she is, Tywin doesn't care. She never recovered from being treated totally different from her twin once they hit puberty.
I can never forgive her cheating on Bobby B. This one choice got tens of thousands killed. It got John, Ned, and Bobby B killed and started a war.
Not really, cercie is just a good a ruler as robert, going as far to copy the decisions robert has made. As well as killing her best friend for having feelings for jaime, if it wasn't for tywin, she would've got everyone in Kings landing killed in the battle of the blackwater.
This is a bold video
A very interesting video, next to Jaimie, Cersei is my favorite Lannister, her chapters are so interesting and entertaining. Think one vital component that makes Cersei the least like out of her pride, is humor. Tywin, especially if you take in his live action counterpart, is one of the most unintentionally funny characters in the saga. Both Tyrion and Jaimie have very sharp tongues, which makes likeable and entertaining. Cersei is probably the least humorous Lannister in the series. And while she has a good reason not to be, it does not endear her to the fandom. I noticed if fans find you funny, that takes a character a long way. I think Cersei is perfectly understood and also misunderstood. She is a terrible person, but also a lesser evil compared to some. I think having Lady killed, is what turned a lot of fans off about her. Also the decision she makes afterwards doesn't help. She is still one of the best written characters in the series.
Yeah you're not wrong, killing Lady was the freaking worst of the worst and is a perfect way to get an audience to hate a character instantly. And no, Cersei isn't particularly funny, which makes her less fun.
@@HillsAliveYT Yeah, the Lady situation definitely put Cersei on most people’s most hated list. I’m happy you get when I mean about humor making even the most despicable characters entertaining. If Cersei was more witty and quippy, I think more fans would like her.
I noticed that she got the "woman" card. Everyone kept saying she was not smart. She had to play the mother card to get her power and use the power of pu%%y. Folks dismissed her and it was so strange that her dwarf brother got more respect.
This was really intersting
Yeah its hard to argue that Cersei is the stupid one when you see some of Tyrion and Jaime's more questionable actions... The Cersei-Tyrion comparison is fascination, because they're both "the designated KL PoV" (or at least one of the designated KL PoVs) ruling the roost in different books, and they both make a series of dumb decisions that come back to bite them and put them on trial. I guess the big difference is that with Tyrion, we're still getting a feel for the way things work in ACoK, don't have as much experience_with/insights_from other characters dealing with the same situations/people, so we're a bit more inclined to take Tyrion's perspective as objective fact. Then by the time Tyrion's mental state spirals downwards, we know his thought process well enough to see it happening. And by the time we get Cersei's first chapter, we have a very good feel for KL and asoiaf politicking in general, built from a myriad of characters who came before her, so its easier for us to spot the flaws in her political reasoning (just like how Barristan's political incompetence is easy to spot). Plus, you're right - we don't get Cersei skillfully outmaneuvering Robert and Ned; her chapters only start once she's been stretched to the breaking point. Can't imagine what it would've been like if our first Tyrion PoV was Tyrion I ADwD...
I’ll admit to only reading the first two books and watching the show, so I haven’t read her POV chapters yet. You make a pretty fair case here, and I’m an outsider looking in, but the big difference between her and her family is that she is way more impulsive than the other Lannisters. She’s probably as intelligent as Tyrion and more than Jaime politically, but seems refuses to see the bigger picture. Her level of, and seeming to revel in, being spiteful doesn’t seem to help her in the opinion of the audience either, despite Tywin and Tyrion being near the same level
The point about “Cersei not being any dumber than other Lannisters” is interesting, and objectively correct imo, but the angle of approach is odd to me. You justify her bad decisions a lot, and say that what’s holding her back is that she doesn’t command the fear her male family member do… but that’s the point, isn’t it?
Saying that she’s not as good at the game as she thinks she is isn’t a bad thing. She isn’t. But none of them are. Tywin is also not as good at the game as he thinks he is; his ruthlessness is effective because it’s shocking, not because it’s particularly clever, and that fear based rule crumbles in the long term. Tywin is the thing that sabotages his own ambition, bc ultimately he is not remarkable or uncommon- cruelty is as common as it gets.
Tyrion is also a “smart guy” that gets completely outplayed. All of the Lannisters who play the game fail, because they refuse to see their own flaws. Cersei isn’t uniquely bad at the game, she wouldn’t have survived King’s Landing otherwise, and she is definitely more politically savvy than Tyrion… but that doesn’t make her any smarter than she’s portrayed.
She uses the same tactics her father did. It doesn’t get her as far bc they don’t respect or fear women. That’s a frustration that is brought up and central to her character. No one is saying her bitterness at the rampant sexism around her is wrong, it isn’t, it’s a humanizing, sympathetic part of her character, and her woman misogynist mindset is interesting. It still doesn’t excuse her cruelty toward others. Tywin ignoring her was an obvious mistake, but Cersei had plenty of opportunity to learn from other women and scorned them instead.
Cersei isn’t any worse than other Lannisters, but all of them are destructive fools. I’d absolutely believe Grrm giving Tyrion too many chapters does contribute to fans giving him more leniency sometimes, but I don’t think we would understand Cersei any better if we had her POV before she started losing.
Thank you for making this.
Still dont understand why is your chanel dont have 100k subs.. thank yoy for your hardwork
💖