[Book Spoilers] Cersei as a Rape Victim: How Does her Experience Inform our Opinions Westerosi Society?

[killacali]

Cersei said that she slept with Jaime on her and bobs wedding night in dwd when she was in the cell waiting for her trial(at work on my phone so dont have an exact quote) wasnt she supposed to be a virgin and if she didnt bleed on her wedding Night wouldnt bob have noticed?(and I don't see Cersei the type to be riding alot of horses in her youth) and if you are with a girl thats not that into you notice it, and its not like they Could get a divorce. So do u think the whole war couldve been avoided if cersei just tried to love bob? I know bob still loved lyanna but Cersei was beautiul enough to make him forget if she was a better person, maybe?

[Davos's Missing Fingers]

Someone probably has the exact quote, but didn't she sleep with Robert on their wedding night, only to have him call her "Lyanna" during the act, thus leading to her sleeping with Jaime after the fact?

And my guess is that Robert would have been too drunk to even notice whether or not she was a virgin.

[mormont]

Cersei said that she slept with Jaime on her and bobs wedding night in dwd when she was in the cell waiting for her trial(at work on my phone so dont have an exact quote) wasnt she supposed to be a virgin and if she didnt bleed on her wedding Night wouldnt bob have noticed?(and I don't see Cersei the type to be riding alot of horses in her youth) and if you are with a girl thats not that into you notice it, and its not like they Could get a divorce. So do u think the whole war couldve been avoided if cersei just tried to love bob? I know bob still loved lyanna but Cersei was beautiul enough to make him forget if she was a better person, maybe?

You're throwing together two unrelated issues here: Cersei's lack of virginity, and whether she made any real attempt to make the marriage work.

The former is pretty much too trivial to bother with (apart from anything else, Robert was so drunk he could never have noticed a thing like that) so let's leave that one alone. On the latter point, love wasn't really required to make the marriage 'work'. It's a dynastic political match, after all. Other things can form the basis of a marriage like that, though: respect, understanding, hard work, co-operation. The key thing is that all of those need to be mutual. In Robert and Cersei's marriage, that wasn't the case. They both share the blame for the failure: neither one can be blamed alone.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I think it's more to the point to say that the war could have been avoided if there weren't a system of forced marriage in place. This doesn't excuse any of the awful things Cersei does, but it's also hardly fair to burden any individual with loving and sleeping with someone they don't love, especially when that someone is a drunken brute.

[Queen Alienor]

Well, I'm not sure about the exact quote, but somewhere Cersei remembers her wedding to Robert. It sounds as if she was quite hopefull, remembering how good and strong he looked like. To me it sounds like at least at that point, Cersei wanted to be happy and tried to be so with Robert. She remembers that only Jamie wasn't happy that day, but I still got the feeling that she was in awe of Robert than. It went downhill pretty fast when he called her Lyanna and turned out to be a drunk whoremanger, but I think she tried, at least at the beginning. It can be argued that she gave up quicker than others would have because she had Jamie to fall back on, but I think the blame for the catastrophe that was this marriage is at least as much on Robert as it is on her.

[Michael Herman]

Well it is pretty clear that neither of them were interested in a happy marriage, Robert couldn't adjust to peacetime life and was still obsessed with Lyanna, Cersei was in a relationship with her brother. She certainly could have made her marriage better if she had worked at it and not been such a bitch her whole life, but considering Tywin Lannister is her father what do you expect?

[Alayne's Shadow.]

Well it is pretty clear that neither of them were interested in a happy marriage, Robert couldn't adjust to peacetime life and was still obsessed with Lyanna, Cersei was in a relationship with her brother. She certainly could have made her marriage better if she had worked at it and not been such a bitch her whole life, but considering Tywin Lannister is her father what do you expect?

Even if she tried, I find it extremely unlikely that It would have worked considering Robert.

[TalalOfDorne]

Eh, its not like Bobert gave her much to work with.

I think both of them should have tried to make it work, not just Cersei.

[Anath]

Err, in the beginning Robert tried to accommodate her, doing things like inviting her to accompany him on his hunting trips. Not terribly romantic but it indicates some willingness to try. She had already written him off, though.

[Winter's Knight]

Err, in the beginning Robert tried to accommodate her, doing things like inviting her to accompany him on his hunting trips. Not terribly romantic but it indicates some willingness to try. She had already written him off, though.

Err he also refused to take responsibility for hurting her during sex and blaantly cheating on her less than a year into their marriage.

[Anath]

Err he also refused to take responsibility for hurting her during sex and blaantly cheating on her less than a year into their marriage.

Sure. I never said he was all trying and she was all unwilling. I am simply tired of reading claims that he never did anything to make it work.

Yes, Cersei was an abused wife. She was also an abusive one. Robert was an oaf but he could have been easily led had she tried. She was too proud for that, though.

Mind you, I am not talking about a happy loving marriage. Just something tolerable that would have saved her from his, 'Come here bitch. So you wanna command me now? Not gonna happen. See this fist? I am a man. I am. I am." mentality.

[Winter's Knight]

Sure. I never said he was all trying and she was all unwilling. I am simply tired of reading claims that he never did anything to make it work.

Yes, Cersei was an abused wife. She was also an abusive one. Robert was an oaf but he could have been easily led had she tried. She was too proud for that, though.

I'm not sure where you get that Robert could be easily led? He is stubborn and refuses to listen to both Jon A. and Ned when he doesn't want to.

[Anath]

I'm not sure where you get that Robert could be easily led? He is stubborn and refuses to listen to both Jon A. and Ned when he doesn't want to.

Yeah, those two were trying to make him see reason. They were arguing with him, challenging him. A little flattery could work wonders with him, being a ladies' man and all. Of course, it had to come from a lady.

A marital bond is quite different from a friendly or mentorly one. Cersei could have tamed him to some extent with flattery and feigned submissiveness. We saw that she had much say even in the shabby state their marriage was in.

Bob wasn't smart enough to see a woman's sweetness as a fake one, IMO. He liked picturing himself as the Manly Man. If Cersei had given him that, her life might have been significanlty better.

[TepidHands]

It seems the only time we the readers actually see him be abusive is when Robert cuffs Cersei in front of Ned, after she said something nasty about his failure to avenge her family's honor when Tyrion is Catnapped (of course, Ned's laying there with a busted leg and his men at arms are all dead, all at the hands of Cersei's honorable family). The rest of the story of their marriage we get only from Cersei's POV, and we know how wonderfully reliable a narrator she is. I mean, he may have come to her bed drunk and pawed her, but he was no Aerys Targaryen, and she certainly was no victim when she aborted his trueborn heir and continued screwing her brother in the king's bed.

[Morienthar]

Both of them screwed it up to be fair,Bob was fixated on a crush and Cersei was manipulative and she couldn't do it with Bob at least not to the extent she did it with Jaime,So they hated each other for entirely different and stupid reasons.

[mormont]

It seems the only time we the readers actually see him be abusive is when Robert cuffs Cersei in front of Ned, after she said something nasty about his failure to avenge her family's honor when Tyrion is Catnapped (of course, Ned's laying there with a busted leg and his men at arms are all dead, all at the hands of Cersei's honorable family). The rest of the story of their marriage we get only from Cersei's POV, and we know how wonderfully reliable a narrator she is. I mean, he may have come to her bed drunk and pawed her, but he was no Aerys Targaryen, and she certainly was no victim when she aborted his trueborn heir and continued screwing her brother in the king's bed.

The 'unreliable narrator' excuse for Robert's abuse is without doubt, the single worst argument I have ever seen on this board in ten years, if not the worst argument I've ever heard. Desperate, feeble, and utterly unfounded. The notion that Cersei is lying to herself about being abused, in spite of her pride and contempt for the role of victim, and in spite of the fact that the behaviour she's recalling is absolutely in character for Robert... well, it just does not even begin to hold water. It's absolute rubbish, a desperate search for any excuse not to accept the plain facts.

[Ran]

I don't think we can question that Cersei's account of her relationship with Robert is more or less accurate -- that he was rough and drunk most often when they were bed, that he used drinking as an excuse, that he was unfaithful and crude, that she herself was unfaithful, abusive, and treasonous. I also think Cersei's remark to Ned that Robert has hit her before, though never in public and never where the bruises can be seen, is accurate as well. As she says, their marriage was more a battle than anything.

But as to the question of whether things might have worked if there had been some effort on her part...

"What did he do to make you hate him so?"

Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that was her sigil. "The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister's name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna.

One name on the very evening of their marriage, and she hates him from then on. If she is to be taken as reliable, then it's clear she gave up on him from the get-go, basically, when they were little more than strangers to one another. We've evidence of Robert trying, in his ham-fisted way, to have something like a "normal" domestic relationship (in so far as they can be normal in a dynastic marriage in a feudal setting), and we've evidence of her lacking any desire to have any kind of rapproachment.

Had Cersei been less judgmental from the start, less prideful, it's possible things would have gone... well, a little differently. But as we know, she was unfaithful to the man on the day they exchanged vows, unfaithful to him thereafter, etc. I don't think any case of conscience, nor any improvement in Robert's own behavior, would have led to any real change. She was too good for Robert, and nothing was going to change her opinion.

[Annara Snow]

I think it's more to the point to say that the war could have been avoided if there weren't a system of forced marriage in place. This doesn't excuse any of the awful things Cersei does, but it's also hardly fair to burden any individual with loving and sleeping with someone they don't love, especially when that someone is a drunken brute.

This. :agree:

There are really many, many things Cersei should be blamed for. But not trying to make her marriage to Robert work? That's really not one of them.

[Dana Holland]

It is not totally unreasonable for Cersei to lie to her self about abuse. Never underestimate the power of mental instability and self rationalizations

[Ran]

Annara,

Cersei can be blamed for actively making sure the marriage could not work, what with entering into the marriage under false pretenses and all.

Dana,

Up to and including making up an entire anecdote about the conversation she had with Robert that led to her hitting him? I don't think so. Robert was rough and unpleasant in bed as he was often very drunk when he came to it.