Cersei's idiocy

[Ame]

Why is it Cersei's brain power is roughly at zero in AFfC, she didn't seem brain dead before becoming a PoV character; are we meant to think the death of Tywin did it? I only ask because I forgot why I liked the earlier books better after rereading some non-Cersei non-Jaime PoV (try avoiding Lannister PoV that improves AFfC) and really found that the weak link was Cersei and Jaime.

Cersei seemed many things 1-3, but the woman who came up with wild fire, the demise of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, just doesn't seem to be the moron of AFfC.

[Sixshells]

There are a lot of threads about her, but if you look attentively you see she wasn't really that bright in the previous books. If I recall correctly it was Tyrion who thought of using wildfire. As for Robert and Ned she had help from LF and Ned's own lack of common sense.

I thought her POV quite funny to read. I think it's unfair to say her brain powers are at zero. She does have some things done and she is not inefficient per se, even if her efforts lead to more chaos. After the fact that she was not groomed for ruling (and her lack of experience) her big problem is, when she is upset about something she completely obsesses about it. She will turn it and twist it in her mind until it has taken the shape she wants even if it doesn't correspond to reality, all the while being basically blind to other matters, which is what Tyrion was talking about in ACOK when he said that the more angry the stupider she gets. All this time in AFFC she is upset about Joff killed, Tywin dead AND found with a whore in his room, and even more so with Margarey. She is so obsessed she is uncapable of thinking of anything else really.

Another problem in AFFC that didn't occur before is that she always had people around her to keep her decisions in check : there were actually competent people in the Counsel, Varys and LF, but she also had Tyrion and Tywin as Hand of the King, preventing her to stray too much afar from reality. In AFFC she has lost all of these mental boudaries : Tywin is dead, Tyrion an Varys disappeared, LF in the Vale, Kevan in the Riverlands then the West, even Jaime has left KL to end the seige of Riverrun. So all she has to back up her own failings are a buch of incompetents and/or untrustworthy people she chose because she was too jealous of her own power to choose anything but fools and yesmen, and a mad scientist. The most competent and trustworthy being Pycelle, whose advice she utterly despises. Him, or Qyburn who is efficient in his domain but is clearly evil and more interested in his own experiments anyway.

I really think her POV is in continuity, simply we never have been in her head to hear all her ramblings and ill feelings about Robert and how of course such a violent drunkard would eventually get himself into a dangerous situation while fighting in the mêlée, or hunting, and so on... IMO Robert's assassination was not that difficult to plot, and as for the aftermath we know it depended a lot on LF's betrayal, not so much her own plotting, or at least not that requiered much beyond the obvious "how much do you want to make sure the City Watch backs me up ?" she asked him. She has the taste for intrigue although she is a relatively obvious player, but not the formation tu rule, simple as that. Of course the taste of power and the loss of Joffrey and her father clearly have aggravated her but it was already there.

[marwyn]

Yeah, you can either take the above explanation, which I think is quite sensible. Or you can take a more cynical approach and say that it indeed doesn't make sense at all but that Martin needed it to happen, because the 5-year gap was cut. Littlefinger even makes an ironical comment about it somewhere in a Sansa chapter (paraphrasing here: "I'd hoped that I'd have a few years of time before Cersei would plunge the realm into chaos" or something along those lines). Originally Cersei would have a few years to go crazy but since the 5-year gap was cut it all needed to happen at an accelerated pace. Which has led some people to complain about the difference in her personality in between book 3 and 4.

I personally just prefer to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the ride, it doesn't bother me that much and I think GRRM pulled off her descent into madness quite believably.

In her defense one could also bring up that the reader has access to a lot more information than she does. We are able to read, re-read, with possible information from other PoV's in mind that she couldn't have known, and point out every exact moment where she makes a mistake. That gives a very different perspective. Of course she's still kinda stupid, but on the other hand she might not be a COMPLETE idiot and after all the things that have happened to her I find her story quite believable.

[mormont]

I don't see any need for a choice: I think it's completely consistent to say that Cersei was never as smart as she appeared to be (or more accurately, as Sixshells points out, that she has always allowed emotion to overwhelm her intelligence) and also accept that events were speeded up somewhat due to the abolition of the gap.

I think her behaviour in AFFC is reasonably consistent with what's gone before. We know that although she can be charming, she has a tendency to be alienate people needlessly by snapping at them (she does this with Sansa). We know that she takes foolish decisions from emotion with little regard to the consequences (such as ordering Joff brought back to the Red Keep). We know that she overestimates her own intelligence (as for example with Alayaya: she genuinely thinks she has been terribly clever in discovering Alayaya, when in fact the girl is a deliberate red herring). These traits might be exaggerated a bit in AFFC - but Cersei was never really a player at all, as LF notes, just a piece who thought she was a player.

[Wouter]

Cersei seemed many things 1-3, but the woman who came up with wild fire, the demise of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark, just doesn't seem to be the moron of AFfC.

Tyrion came up with the wildfire and Littlefinger was the one responsible for the demise of Ned Stark. She did get Robert, true, but then she got close to getting Margaery nailed in AFFC, as well. She still has that low cunning from AGOT, but this time LF or Varys don't save her when things get out of hand for her, unlike in AGOT. Without LF siding with her for his own reasons, Ned Stark and the goldcloaks would have taken her out already in AGOT.

[Ser Pistus]

(...) the woman who came up with wild fire

The wildfire was Tyrion's idea, wasn't it? Cersei only claimed it her own after the battle.

[Sega AM2]

The wildfire was Tyrion's idea, wasn't it? Cersei only claimed it her own after the battle.

http://www.towerofthehand.com/books/102/021/index.html

Cersei wanted 10,000 jars of wildfire to use against Stannis or Renly.

[Duskfire]

I think it was Littlefinger who stated to Sansa that Cersei has little more then looks, money and power, and thats what she uses to get by. So her being not all that great was already being mentioned. I think the difference is that after SoS she wasnt surrounded by great plotters who could help her; Varys, Littlefinger, Tywin, Tyrion, etc etc.

[Logen Ninefingers]

The wildfire was Tyrion's idea, wasn't it? Cersei only claimed it her own after the battle.

I think Cersei did initially order the wildfire but as I remember Aerys also demanded wildfire and he was craaaazy. Coming up with the idea for wildfire isn't genius, finding a way to use it effectively without it backfiring on you is the key.

[Duskfire]

I think Cersei did initially order the wildfire but as I remember Aerys also demanded wildfire and he was craaaazy. Coming up with the idea for wildfire isn't genius, finding a way to use it effectively without it backfiring on you is the key.

Yup exactly.

Her biggest idiocy was not realising how big an asset Tyrion was. (Something her father also seems plagued by.)

[Sixshells]

http://www.towerofthehand.com/books/102/021/index.html

Cersei wanted 10,000 jars of wildfire to use against Stannis or Renly.

In the book the formulation is ambiguous at best. The pyromancer says that 10000 jars "were promised to the queen". Taking into account Tyrion's remark of using what's offered it seem to indicate it was the pyromancers who came offering their services to the queen regent, as any guild desiring to be in their ruler's good graces would.

The fact that he is the one actually doing the legwork and taking precautions for the safest possible use of wilfire makes it even more his idea than hers IMO.

[Bobbity]

I think that its paranoia forcing her to make bad decisions. Always before, she's lusted for power, but there have always been someone reasonably competent to either counsel her or actually run things, but in AFfC, she finally gets absolute power. Combine that with insane paranoia at the thought of having it taken from her, and a prophecy predicting just that, and that's not exactly the ideal combination.

[hagga on her hill]

Why is it Cersei's brain power is roughly at zero in AFfC, she didn't seem brain dead before becoming a PoV character; are we meant to think the death of Tywin did it?

I would chalk it up to the death of Tywin at the hands of her younger brother, Joffrey dying in her arms, losing Myrcella, being in the middle of a messy divorce from Jaime, and watching Tommen in the hands of people she instinctively knows are dangerous.

I doubt she would be less of an awful person if we saw her POV in the first three books, but the way people are so stunned that Cersei is "batshit crazy" after losing 5/6 of her immediate family always makes me shake my head.

[FatCatOberyn]

Tyrion came up with the wildfire and Littlefinger was the one responsible for the demise of Ned Stark. She did get Robert, true, but then she got close to getting Margaery nailed in AFFC, as well. She still has that low cunning from AGOT, but this time LF or Varys don't save her when things get out of hand for her, unlike in AGOT. Without LF siding with her for his own reasons, Ned Stark and the goldcloaks would have taken her out already in AGOT.

Tyrion came up with the chain, wildfire was Cersei's idea.

[Saulot]

In Storm, Littlefinger has no respect for Cersei's intelligence, and Tywin seems to have no regard for Cersei's competence in Game of Thrones (where he sends Tyrion to rule instead of her) or in Storm of Swords (where he plans to send her away to keep her away from Joff and Tommen and the government). During my reread, I definitely got the sense that the Cersei in Feast for Crows was there all along, and her competence is something of a POV illusion.

[Greyjoy Rebellion]

Cersei's biggest character flaw is having zero personal responsibility for all the poor decisions she has made. She's one of the worst strategists in the books and blames everyone else for her mistakes.

[GoodKingAlf]

I've always thought her descent into idiocy was believeable.

She's lost her son, her father, her brother, her daughter... that there is enough to skew someone a little bit.

She tries to build up a base of power, but the people she surrounds herself with are weak (because she wants them that way), but even so they always disagree with her and don't respect her. She can see the power slipping through her fingers and scrabbles around to hold onto it. And as her grip gets weaker she makes wilder and more idiotic decisions.

Plus, it's not that she makes ridiculous decisions, she's also very easily flattered.

[Easy]

I think that its paranoia forcing her to make bad decisions. Always before, she's lusted for power, but there have always been someone reasonably competent to either counsel her or actually run things, but in AFfC, she finally gets absolute power. Combine that with insane paranoia at the thought of having it taken from her, and a prophecy predicting just that, and that's not exactly the ideal combination.

I agree with this. Add the emotional trauma of seeing her son die to the prophecy and the fact she has absolute power and it makes for an extremely paranoid individual with the power to act on that paranoia.

She didn't handle the power she gained upon Robert's death too well either. She seems more comfortable plotting from a weaker position where the scope of her actions are limited and she has more time to plan them.

[guinness10]

Yeah, it's been mentioned already by others, but I definitely feel like her POV is believable. She's mentally falling apart after struggling against this prophecy for so many years and in spite of her best efforts, it still seems that it is coming to pass for her. Plus, as a parent myself, I can only start to imagine how devastating it would be to lose a child.

We think Joffrey is a monster (rightly so, I might add), but to Cersei, he's still her son. She doesn't see him as monstrous - perhaps at worst, a boy who needs some strong guidance so that he might grow into a good king. To have him die in her arms would be, I'm sure, devastating to her. Couple that event alone with having Myrcella taken away from her, Tommen sitting on the Iron Throne and surrounded by people she's unsure if she can fully trust, her relationship with Jamie falling to pieces, her father being killed by her other brother (whom she hates and believes will be the one to kill HER) and it's not hard to see why she behaves the way she does in AFfC.

On top of all that, it seemed to me that she definitely develops a drinking problem in AFfC. I don't remember her drinking as heavily in other books (granted, we don't get her POV in earlier books), but in AFfC she's sucking down wine like it's going out of style. If she's turning into a heavy drinker, that would also help explain her horrible decision-making in AFfC.

[MindLikeWarp]

I think she is a psycho, that did stupid, psychopathic things, and eventually it caught up with her. She didn't really start doing stupid things, she was always doing, and has always done, stupid things.