Cersei - more Daddy issues or Mommy issues?

[Ziggy Targdust]

She calls Tywin father but refers to Joanna as Joanna, not mother. Why is this?

[The King Of Cooked Steak]

Where did you spot this?

[David Selig]

More sibling issues, I'd say.

[Ziggy Targdust]

Where did you spot this?

Not exactly sure, she's talking to Jaime.

So it would be after Jaime returns to KL.

I think it was right after Tywin died.

[The Tickler.]

I did not notice this, but I suspect that the death of her mother at a relatively young age has created many mother issues.

She seems to desperately want Tywin to appreciate her as he would appreciate Jamie. This could be because she can not get any validation from a female role model.

I would say the lose of her mother and Tywins parenting style combine to cause her issues.

However what about her brother issues, trying to emulate Jamie but unable to and her fear and hatred of Tyrion

[Azor Azai]

I think she is just plain nuts, due to her parentage.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

I think losing her mother has given her a twisted perception of gender in which she feels the perpetual victim.

[Chatty Duelist]

Both truly, her father was a cold-ass dude that gave no fucks about his children save for Jaime. And she lacked a maternal figure to guide her. This gave her a sense of wander, she couldn't satisfy her father because he doesn't give fucks, and she has no mother figure to teach her.

So yeah. She had a fucked up childhood.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Both. I disagree that she got nothing from Tywin. She was daddy's little girl if ever there was one. Granted he wasn't the huggy, lovey sort, but he planned to improve the family's glory through her, not through Jaime.

Tywin's parenting style wasn't great, and she lacked a mother. So she's got issues from both. Plus she's going crazy.

[Nymeria Stone]

Both. I disagree that she got nothing from Tywin. She was daddy's little girl if ever there was one. Granted he wasn't the huggy, lovey sort, but he planned to improve the family's glory through her, not through Jaime.

Tywin's parenting style wasn't great, and she lacked a mother. So she's got issues from both. Plus she's going crazy.

I would say Tywin's parenting style was awful. At least after Joanna's death

[Annara Snow]

Yes, the lack of a mother figure is certainly one of the things that caused Cersei's screwed-up attitude to gender together with her father's parenting and general attitude.

I would say Tywin's parenting style was awful. At least after Joanna's death

:agree: He fucked up all his children with his 'parenting style'. Especially Tyrion and Cersei.

But I also don't think he really loved Jaime as Jaime, he just loved what the idea of him as his perfect son & heir, never accepted the fact had other desires that didn't include being Tywin's heir, and couldn't let go off the hope that Jaime would one day come over to his wishes.

His attitudes to his three children are very different, but they are all examples of awful parenting. The scene where he is ordering Cersei to marry Willas and convincing Tyrion to marry Sansa, and the scene in which Jaime rejects his offer to leave KG, are a perfect example:

- Cersei, the daughter: Tywin doesn't value her opinion at all. She's his golden daughter, but she has no right to decide anything for herself - "You are my daughter and you will do as I say!" And she can't find it in herself to oppose him, even though she is a the queen regent, not a little girl.

- Tyrion, the dwarf son: Tywin despises him and has emotionally abused him all his life, and doesn't even want to believe that he is his son, but as a male, Tyrion still gets more agency - Tywin doesn't outright tell him: "You are my son and you will do as I say!" but keeps insisting and using a mix of dominating personality and manipulation ("would you rather marry Lollys?" "[We both know I'm not giving you Casterly Rock] but you can get Winterfell") and Tyrion protests but in the end agrees, as he usually does when it comes to Tywin (until he kills him).

- Jamie, the golden (previously) able-bodied son: Tywin's favorite child in the sense that he has huge expectations from him which he never gives. Tywin gives him more respect and agency than the other two, and Jamie is the only one who outright rejects his offer and Tywin doesn't try to change his decision or outright ignore it. Instead, he rejects him completely: "You are not my son!"

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I would say Tywin's parenting style was awful. At least after Joanna's death

With Tyrion yes, but we don't know that he treated the twins badly. And we have no idea what he was like before she died, which would be a huge factor in Cersei's development.

[Ziggy Targdust]

Has anyone found the part where I'm talking about when Cersei calls her Joanna instead of mother?

It's some time after Jaime returns to KL I think it may have been when Jaime was guarding over Tywins body.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

Ziggy, I have all five books downloaded as one huge searchable volume on my Nook (I highly recommend it, very handy).

There's no mention of Joanna in the conversation between Jaime and Cersei during that scene at Tywin's bier.

When Cersei visits Jaime in his KG quarters while Tywin is still alive, and is begging him to agree to leave the KG so they can go to CR together (not sure how exactly she thought that was going to work since Tywin was still planning to marry her off), she says "Would you have us ripped apart, as Mother did that time she caught us playing?". Maybe that's what you're thinking of?

The only place where Cersei speaks her mother's name is when she gives Joff the wife's cloak to drape Margaery in.

"It is the cloak I donned when Robert took me for his queen, the same cloak my mother Lady Joanna wore when she wed my father."

Her use of Joanna's name in this instance seems appropriate to me.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

As far as Cersei's issues... It's said that Tywin ruled Aerys, but Lady Joanna ruled Tywin. I believe it's very likely that Cersei got a lot of her notions about a woman being as capable of wielding power as a man from her mother. She was 9 when her mother died after all, far old enough to remember her and certainly to have had her personality shaped by her.

Cersei's focus *appears* to be solely on Tywin, but her mother is not there to focus on or accurately emulate. I think Cersei saw her mother having, at minimum, an equal voice with Tywin, and formulated the early belief that relationships like that between men and women were the norm, rather than a very glaring exception.

Then her mother passed just as she and Jaime were entering the stage where the major differences in how they were treated began. I don't think she was ever able to reconcile her childhood formed expectations with reality. Suddenly the powerful female figure is gone, and she is utterly baffled by the instantaneous change in power balance.

Most of us spend our childhoods believing that the way things work in our homes are the norm. Cersei was probably no exception and was shocked and disillusioned when she found out she actually lived in a completely male-dominated society. Bitterly so.

Even then I think she expected (partly due to having her ego and sense of self-worth - never lacking to begin with - blown up even further by everyone from her father to her aunt) that she would have a marriage like her parents'. Of course she wanted Rhaegar - besides the romantic daydreams of a young girl, he was a man who probably could have been easily swayed by a strong willed wife. He certainly wasn't confrontational and would likely have let her have her way for the most part.

Then even that got yanked from under her, and she found herself married to the absolute epitome of "women should be seen/ bedded/ bred but most definitely NOT heard." And I frankly believe Lyanna had the right of it - even if she'd lived to marry Robert, she might have handled him better, but changed him she would not.

So I guess I don't see Cersei's problem as being Mommy OR Daddy, but rather thwarted expectations. I also believe her sexual relationship with Jaime was far more about giving a big two-finger salute to both her parents for (in her mind) misleading her, than about actually being "IN love" with Jaime or initially even really desiring him. We see her use his desire for her to get what she wants from him (or trying to) repeatedly; we also see her usually rejecting his advances whenever she does not currently need something specific from him and usually giving in as if it's more inevitable than desirable.

I don't doubt that he was her preferred lover most of her adult life - look what she had to compare him to. He was her first (sick as that is), he was infinitely preferable to Robert (which could probably have been said of the vast majority of her options for lovers), and in the end he was simply what she was used to.

But I do not see Cersei as a particularly sexual woman. To her, sex was first a rebellion, then a means to an end (which it remained/ remains), then something she was forced to put up with for a time. We never really see her having sex for the sake of having sex - there is always either pressure or force from the man, or an ulterior motive for her.

If Joanna had lived, maybe Cersei would have learned better. She might have been able to bitch-slap some sense into Cersei. Then again, maybe not. Joanna might have been just another person for Cersei to rebel against, fool, lie to, use - whatever suited her purposes.

[Gneisenau]

Well Tywin is the patriarch of the Lannister family, so perhaps Cersei felt it more formal to say father. But I don't think using Joanna is so much mummy issues, as it is weird issues. How many people refer to their moms by her first name ?

[JonCon's Red Beard]

She has issues. That's all.

[starkbucks]

Probably mad king issues.

[Mithras]

I don't think any kind of parenting would have saved Cersei.