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

[six]

if its non consentual its rape, weather its marital or not.

Cersei only ever consented once in the books (on her wedding night when he whispered 'Lyanna' in her ear) after that it was more or less rape. However it is no simple task for killing the king to stop him raping you, especially when he raped her most at the start of their marriage when he had no lannister born heir. It would just not have been possible, plus it only happened once every year or so at the end of their marriage Cersei stated so it affected her less.

I argue that this rape led to Cersei loving Jamie more and 'doing' him.

This is kind of common in Westeros, obviously most women don't have so much pressure or have to be in that situation with her brother in a political marriage. Political marriages are common in Westeros but many like Doran Martell marry for love. Also many of these marriages end up in love or a decent situation. Not everybody is as psychotic as Cersei or as brutal/love lorn as Robert loosing Lyanna.

I'm confused as to what Cersei you're referring to. Despite the fact some want to convince themselves they're basically the same character books/show, they really aren't. Book!Cersei had sex with Jaime the morning of her wedding, and hated Robert's guts from the word go. Nothing drove her to Jaime, she was always there, although being raped made her situation worse.

Show!Cersei loved Robert and her feelings were so evident that even he knew about it, and when she reminds him he seems to be a little ashamed of it- he can't look her in the eyes when he says "I know" he almost sounds sorry for it. In the show there's no evidence of rape, it's likely though that Robert's rejection did drive Cersei to let's say seek solace, in Jaime.

i only seem to remember the event where she threw a wine glass at him.

That's the time. She remembers he hurt her, and when she told him he seems to know, so she smashes a cup on his face. The thing is, I'm sure Robert was violent towards her and he did rape her, because it sounds like something Robert would do, however in some capacities Cersei had to force herself to sleep with him, because she had 3 pregnancies. It's fucked up.

[juanml82]

But is Cersei a reliable narrator? There are numerous instances in we see her color her memories or her recollections of events in ways to convince herself she is the victim (her feeling of betrayal at the hands of Sansa, the events surrounding the death of her childhood friend, etc.). I am not arguing that Robert was a shining light of manhood but does he seem like a rapist? We have heard tales of him having sex with tavern wenches, maids, prostitutes, low noblewomen, and high noblewomen but there has never been any implication that he ever used force to get anyone to have sex with him beyond Cersei, a woman who at best he feels indifference and at worst he utterly loathes and avoids whenever possible.

While the show lore is necessarily smaller than the books lore I think it maybe understood that none in Westeros has the concept of marital rape. Quite the opposite, they have the concept of marital duty (Tyrion to Sansa during their wedding night "we must do our duty" IIRC).

So, even if Show!Cersei narrates similar stuff to Book!Cersei (which I don't remember) neither Robert nor Cersei even consider the possibility that either one of them can be against having sex with each other.

This regarding the show. In the books

Cersei mentions how Robert bruised her and Robert would later "apologize" by saying "it was the wine" which sounds for a lame excuse for something he should know it was wrong. Show!Cersei doesn't mention such a thing, I think, which means that, so far, it's not part of the show canon

Thank you for sharing the article. It's an interesting and controversial topic. I credit the OP with mentioning it, a lot of people will tend to avoid it. As I'm sure you can tell by the lack of responses to an otherwise interesting topic.

In Westeros arranged marriage is the common practice of their culture, women are taught that and expect everything that goes along with that. For those reason I don't interpret what happened to Cersei as rape. Arranged marriages are common occurrence throughout history, even today in parts of the world. For example I'm Italian and it was part of our culture, until recently, to have an arranged marriage. My great grandma never seemed to think she was "raped" nor did my great grandpa because it was an expected thing that everyone did. Instead of marrying and having sex for love, they did it as their duty. I'm sure most of the time both sides objected and wanted to choose their partner but it just wasn't what happened.

I do think the practice of arranged marriages is horrible and would demean a woman making them feel like their being sold off for marriage by their family. I think that reflects more on Cersei as well.

The thing about comparisons with the real world is that.... well, it isn't the real world. We're talking about fictional aristocrats in a fictional society. Cersei is a filthy rich young lady who lives off taxes when she marries Robert. She becomes a Queen in order to increase her dynasty influence in the realm's government and their overall importance vis a vis the other dynasties (which she does). She enjoys a lavish lifestyle, probably expending more in a single day than entire Westerosi commoner families expend in a year, and she does this not only through taxes but by getting the realm - not herself, not even her family - into debt.

Even in the show, what we see about arranged marriages is that they are done by political, if not military, reasons. Margery is scheduled to marry Joffrey because she wants to be Queen. And that means that she'll have to have sex with him. Robb at first and Edmure later are supposed to marry because they want to get 4,000 soldiers and a crucial bridge. Littlefinger is off to marry Lysa to bring the entire strength of the Vale to the fight. Ned married Catelyn to get 20,000 armed men as well as free passage through the Riverlands for his and Jon Arryn's army.

So, when these types of threads go to "oh, in real life...", well... In real life there maybe some abusive father in some remote village in some conservative Muslim country is selling his nine years old daughter to a pedophile for a TV. But when, in real life, people married to use a country's budget as their personal budget or to get their own, personal, 20,000 men strong army?

[Ran]

Cersei does not remember that Robert forced her legs apart. She refers to his having tried to do so, or rather that Taena never tried to do so, obviously implying that Robert did try on those occasions when he drunkenly stumbled into her bed.

There's a lengthy thread from the book discussion area still open that goes over a lot of things, and I think it'd be useful to make this part of that, so I'm putting the two together so we can keep reasoned discussion in a single place. I also think it's interesting to see the contrast between the TV show and the novel, as the TV show has certainly presented what seems quite a different take on the Robert-Cersei relationship, at least so far as we can tell.