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What's the basis for Cersei's claim to the Iron Throne?


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18 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Um, closest to what?

  • She has no Targaryen blood.
  • She has no Baratheon blood.

Therefore “closest” cannot possibly apply. 

That's all that matters.

Current king is Tommen.

Legally he is half Baratheon and half Lannister.

Tommen has no brother's and sisters anymore. Tommen has no Baratheon uncle's aunt's or cousins.

Tommen has one Targaryen distant cousin who he is related to on his Baratheon side. She is exiled and has been kicked out of the line of succession.

His father had a few bastards. In the show none are recognized, so they would be entirely reliant on someone believing them. In the books a handful are but most are nowhere near KL and would need an LP to take up the claim on their behalf, they could not enforce it themselves and no one in power at KL is going to fight for them.

That's the entire Baratheon and Targaryen line.

So do they just dissolve the government? No. They are going to look at the closest living relative of the last king. You know the wife of a king. The mother of two kings. The women who if any of the previous kings were too young would have literally become regent if one of the previous two king's was unable to rule.

So yeah she is the closest despite no blood relation.

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14 minutes ago, lancerman said:

It's a feudal a system!!! Do you even understand this show? Especially since everything known about the Iron Throne and it's history is basically a cursory look in how flippant the line of succession is.

The government is a king the small council who he selects himself. Then there are a bunch of Great Houses who swear fealty to the king and run their own regions with their own autonomy as long as they are loyal. They aren't part of some organized structure.

What do you even think the "provisional government" consists of? There is no formal structure to say "this is who rules when the king is to young". The closest thing we ever got to that in the books or show was Robert saying "Ned's king until Joffrey's old enough" on his goddamn death bed. That was the provisional government. And it was ignored the second that ONE PERSON tried to wield that power. Multiple times in the history of this country a ruler died and their was a massive dispute over throne that was settled in battle. Not legality, battle.

So let's go back through this again. With everyone in the Baratheon line dead, and the closest relative to the Baratheon line was exhiled by a previous king, who is the closest to the line of succession that would have the clearest path to the throne? It's Cersie.

If you want to get into the internal logic of the show. Robert was a usurper who tried to say he was a relative to the Targaryens, despite stepping over all living Targaryens. Joffrey was an unknowing usurper who stepped over the appointed ruler of the last king before he came of age, so he even broke the last king's law before ascending to the throne. Then Cersie was the closest relative to the last king who died with one of his bloodlines being extinct.

Seriously who do you think this provisional government is that is going to step in and take control of everything to look for every last living Baratheon blood relative they can find?

Feudal system has no succession rules? Wow, you surprised many historians. 

You assume lords and Great Houses and their voices are not important? Feudal system by definition is a lord relying other lords to govern the land. You think lords in Westros would just say "forget it, I don't care if a woman with no royal blood become my queen, screw our centuries old laws and traditions!"

Line of succession is about royal blood, for how many times? And it has precedent and succeeding order. Sons are generally higher than brothers etc, closer blood relatives are higher than distant blood relatives. Show me how Cersei's got royal blood in her. Oh, and you forget how succession war started because someone of royal blood claims the young king is a product of incest by people not having royal blood? People would go like "hell, yeah, let's crown the incest suspect! Nobody would care!"

Oh my! Robert is still usurper to some Targaryen loyalists! Your argument is invalid. And he takes the throne by conquest, with a field army on the field defeating Targaryen field army, not through line of succession.

Did I say the provisional have to find the successor? I said the process could go on indefinitely. Cerseri as queen regent can pretend couldn't she? 

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12 minutes ago, Kusanagi said:

I can't fathom why they would think that way other than honey-pot rationalising. No succession rule works like that.

Succession always goes to the blood relatives of whoever holding the rights. In case direct blood relatives die out, it would go to uncle, aunts, cousins and so for, but never parents from other side of the family, as they are considered marriage partnets. Marriage partners can however become guardians or regents.

You clearly don't understand this type of society. Read a history book. There's a reason why whenever somebody became king it was imperative that they produced a male heir as soon as they possibly could to maintain the line of succession. There is a reason's why king's literally became hellbent on having a direct male heir. There's a reason why even tiny disputes in the line of succession broke out into war in history (and GRRM mirrored it in the history of this universe). There's a reason why lines have died out because the king couldn't produce a male heir.

It's not designed so that some provisional government (which doesn't exist in this universe) just stops society and looks someone's third cousin twice removed living in some farmhouse somewhere.

You don't even need to read the history of the world, just look at the history in this series.

I can't believe someone can have even spent five minutes around this series and not understood the way this society is structured.

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16 minutes ago, lancerman said:

That's the entire Baratheon and Targaryen line.

So do they just dissolve the government? No. They are going to look at the closest living relative of the last king. You know the wife of a king. The mother of two kings. The women who if any of the previous kings were too young would have literally become regent if one of the previous two king's was unable to rule.

So yeah she is the closest despite no blood relation.

That is not how a feudal system works. She cannot inherit their lands or titles, ever. She is not related to them by blood, and blood is what counts here for inheritance and succession. She has none.

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7 minutes ago, Kusanagi said:

Feudal system has no succession rules? Wow, you surprised many historians. 

You assume lords and Great Houses and their voices are not important? Feudal system by definition is a lord relying other lords to govern the land. You think lords in Westros would just say "forget it, I don't care if a woman with no royal blood become my queen, screw our centuries old laws and traditions!"

Line of succession is about royal blood, for how many times? And it has precedent and succeeding order. Sons are generally higher than brothers etc, closer blood relatives are higher than distant blood relatives. Show me how Cersei's got royal blood in her. Oh, and you forget how succession war started because someone of royal blood claims the young king is a product of incest by people not having royal blood? People would go like "hell, yeah, let's crown the incest suspect! Nobody would care!"

Oh my! Robert is still usurper to some Targaryen loyalists! Your argument is invalid. And he takes the throne by conquest, with a field army on the field defeating Targaryen field army, not through line of succession.

Did I say the provisional have to find the successor? I said the process could go on indefinitely. Cerseri as queen regent can pretend couldn't she? 

Let's take your silly argument at face value ignoring the history of the books and virtually every feudal system.

Who in the current government around KL (and feel free to define the government) is going to stop and look for some distant relative while Cersie is regent?

She gets to pick the small council. Of the great Houses... The Starks are declaring themselves King's in the North and the Vale is backing them. Dorne, the Reach, and a good chunk of the IronBorn are backing a usurper. Not because she is in the line of succession, literally just because they hate the Lannisters. So none of them are doing it. The Riverlands is in complete disarray without the Frey's and the Tully's. The Ironborn following Euron are declaring their own indepence, so they are usurpers traitors to that government. So there's the Stormlands? Who have just backed two "king's" regarded as traitors.

The answer is that this isn't an organized enough society for a sophisticated line of succession and Cersie was the closest to take the throne after her son's died and everyone else is a traitor to the current line in some way shape or form. Cersie's claim is that the only army backing the Iron Throne and the current line of succession is the Lannister army and some of the guards in the crownlands who were always loyal to her and there is no one else making a claim to that line of succession that is powerful enough to enforce it, especially since no one else in the realm is even taking that line seriously anymore and haven't for quite some time.

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4 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

That is not how a feudal system works. She cannot inherit their lands or titles, ever. She is not related to them by blood, and blood is what counts here for inheritance and succession. She has none.

Who can take it then? That's all I want. One living person who can take it in the Baratheon or Targaryen line that is recognized enough. Then I would like a means for the current set up of the government around KL to enforce that claim. And a way to get them there.

Because one known person exists in that line. A very distant cousin who is exiled and is declaring herself a conquerer taking up for an older line of succession that lost whatever claim she had to the current one before she was even born.

Everyone isn't just going to say "welp their is no ruler".

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21 minutes ago, David Selig said:

The basis is that virtually all current characters in the show are morons who acts illogically to move the plot along.

That's the seventh time you’ve used the word morons in the past few days, and yes I’ve been counting. 

You might want to give it a rest. Name-calling gets old, especially combined with throwing stones in glass houses.

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1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Ok, I give up. How can you pretend that person “had no claim”?

Once Rickon was killed, FakeJon has the best (apparent) claim to become the Lord of Winterfell. There are no other claimants, and even if you could dig up a fifth cousin thrice removed, his would not have the strength that FakeJon’s claim has, even if his true parentage were known.

Remember that Bael’s bastard son by Lord Stark’s daughter eventually came to rule Winterfell.  And that wasn't even by popular acclaim the way this was. The election makes a difference.

Plus let's be serious here. Martin himself said that:

Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history . . . which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory. 

[long answer elided]

The bottom line, I suppose, is that inheritance was decided as much by politics as by laws. In Westeros and in medieval Europe both.

Those are the facts on the ground, the rules that Martin is playing by. This is not a video game with mechanical laws or physics with natural ones.

That the North chose to make FakeJon the Lord of Winterfell is completely consistent with the rules of Westeros and medieval Europe alike, as Martin explained.  And they’ve made him Lord Stark just as happened with Bael’s bastard son.

Someone different their choice to make him King in the North, setting him at odds with the Iron Throne. It’s true that the Starks were kings for a long time, but not for the last 300 years.  I don’t see why they had to make FakeJon king rather than simply the Lord Stark of Winterfell.

I would think that simply being the Stark in Winterfell would be enough.  But perhaps I'm missing something here.

I should have been clearer. Jon has no claim in comparison to the legitimate half-sister sitting right next to him.

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9 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

That's the seventh time you’ve used the word morons in the past few days, and yes I’ve been counting. 

You might want to give it a rest. Name-calling gets old, especially combined with throwing stones in glass houses.

Ah, such a "subtle" jab. Quite the genius you are.

Sorry, I will use "morons" as often as I want. I couldn't care less what you think about my use of that word.

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32 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Who can take it then? That's all I want. One living person who can take it in the Baratheon or Targaryen line that is recognized enough. Then I would like a means for the current set up of the government around KL to enforce that claim. And a way to get them there.

Because one known person exists in that line. A very distant cousin who is exiled and is declaring herself a conquerer taking up for an older line of succession that lost whatever claim she had to the current one before she was even born.

Everyone isn't just going to say "welp their is no ruler".

Legally Cersei has no claim. Being the mother of the previous king doesn't give you any legal claim in Westeros or in any similar historical system. Practically she has made an enemy of virtually every powerful family in the realm and managed to anger all the pious Faith followers too. Not to mention that her prestige and image were destroyed after the whole capital watched her naked on the street (this alone should be enough to make her unable to be a ruling queen under any circumstances in a patriarchal sex negative society like Westeros). She had no army and not retainers in the capitals before Jaime came. She just become a kinslayer too when she killed Lancel and Kevan. She had nobody on her side at all except Qyburn and UnGregor before Jaime came. So how the hell did she not only manage to be in charge of the capital but even proclaimed herself a ruling queen with apparently nobody objecting?

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36 minutes ago, lancerman said:

Let's take your silly argument at face value ignoring the history of the books and virtually every feudal system.

Who in the current government around KL (and feel free to define the government) is going to stop and look for some distant relative while Cersie is regent?

She gets to pick the small council. Of the great Houses... The Starks are declaring themselves King's in the North and the Vale is backing them. Dorne, the Reach, and a good chunk of the IronBorn are backing a usurper. Not because she is in the line of succession, literally just because they hate the Lannisters. So none of them are doing it. The Riverlands is in complete disarray without the Frey's and the Tully's. The Ironborn following Euron are declaring their own indepence, so they are usurpers traitors to that government. So there's the Stormlands? Who have just backed two "king's" regarded as traitors.

The answer is that this isn't an organized enough society for a sophisticated line of succession and Cersie was the closest to take the throne after her son's died and everyone else is a traitor to the current line in some way shape or form. Cersie's claim is that the only army backing the Iron Throne and the current line of succession is the Lannister army and some of the guards in the crownlands who were always loyal to her and there is no one else making a claim to that line of succession that is powerful enough to enforce it, especially since no one else in the realm is even taking that line seriously anymore and haven't for quite some time.

Geez.

I have already said that they don't have to maintain a semblance of law and order, Cersei seizing the throne by forces can work too, fine. But show that audience the process and the consequences. This is called setup and payoff in story writing 101.

If they have done that, we wouldn't have this many people asking questions, me criticising consistency and you honeypot rationalizing.

You still can't show us how Cersei is in line of succession whatsoever other than force and disregarding the universe's laws and traditions, but since you don't give a dime about internal logic, then it doesn't matter to you.

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13 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Legally Cersei has no claim. Being the mother of the previous king doesn't give you any legal claim in Westeros or in any similar historical system. Practically she has made an enemy of virtually every powerful family in the realm and managed to anger all the pious Faith followers too. Not to mention that her prestige and image were destroyed after the whole capital watch her naked on the street (this alone should be enough to make her unable to be a ruling queen under any circumstances in a patriarchal sex negative society like Westeros). She had no army and not retainers in the capitals before Jaime came. She just become a kinslayer too when she killed Lancel and Kevan. She had nobody on her side at all except Qyburn and UnGregor before Jaime came. So how the hell she not only managed to be in charge of the capital and even proclaimed herself a ruling queen with apparently nobody objecting?

And she is the suspect of incest and the Sparrows is charging her numerous crimes! No one in Westros would take her as legitimate queen, absolutely no one. 

Furthermore, since she is recklessly killing Lannisters left and right, it is doubtful that Lannister is a powerful united house now.

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1. There is no indication anyone is actually going to follow this. She dragged in some servants and commoners kept in check by guards for the coronation. She had already killed the entire court. There is no one in the city to challenge her. But likely no one will actually believe she is queen either. 5 of the 8 kingdoms are in revolt. Stormlands are MIA. She may have the support of Casterly Rock, maybe. Riverlands who knows. The Frey's don't really control the riverlands and they are now under new leadership. I expect a short, bloodly, and crazy reign for Queen Cersei.

2. Claims on thrones or inheritances are often legally dubious. Renly didn't have a good one. Henry Tudor relied on a tenuous connection though his mother to a bastard. Robert also used a tenuous claim to justify his claim.

3. There is no better claim to the Baratheon line. In the books, a legitimized bastard would have a far stronger claim. But in the show there isn't even that. Literally nobody alive can claim Baratheon blood. The claim of her son's titles when there are literally no other claimants is weak, but better than anyone else.

4. This is more a coup d'état than a succession. She's just taking the thrown. The claim is a rationalization. It doesn't matter that a Great Council wouldn't name her Queen, because she wasn't going to wait for that. She could even write up some bullshit will and pretend Tommen named her his heir.

A big plot hole is the fact that nobody planned for what would happen if Tommen dies. He was a king without any, even a remote, heir. They should have figured something out before this happened.

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25 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

1. There is no indication anyone is actually going to follow this. She dragged in some servants and commoners kept in check by guards for the coronation. She had already killed the entire court. There is no one in the city to challenge her. But likely no one will actually believe she is queen either. 5 of the 8 kingdoms are in revolt. Stormlands are MIA. She may have the support of Casterly Rock, maybe. Riverlands who knows. The Frey's don't really control the riverlands and they are now under new leadership. I expect a short, bloodly, and crazy reign for Queen Cersei.

2. Claims on thrones or inheritances are often legally dubious. Renly didn't have a good one. Henry Tudor relied on a tenuous connection though his mother to a bastard. Robert also used a tenuous claim to justify his claim.

3. There is no better claim to the Baratheon line. In the books, a legitimized bastard would have a far stronger claim. But in the show there isn't even that. Literally nobody alive can claim Baratheon blood. The claim of her son's titles when there are literally no other claimants is weak, but better than anyone else.

4. This is more a coup d'état than a succession. She's just taking the thrown. The claim is a rationalization. It doesn't matter that a Great Council wouldn't name her Queen, because she wasn't going to wait for that. She could even write up some bullshit will and pretend Tommen named her his heir.

A big plot hole is the fact that nobody planned for what would happen if Tommen dies. He was a king without any, even a remote, heir. They should have figured something out before this happened.

I have no problem with these arguments generally, but:

1. Show the process and the consequences. If this is to be shown in next season, give us some proper setup so we have some closures and expectation and don't have to question the gaping holes.

2. Renly has a blood claim and he is the lord of Storm's End, which is the ancestral seat of the Baratheons. Robert get the throne by force not by falling in line of succession. He only uses this claim to booster his legitimacy to rule over Westros; otherwise, Ned's authority is as good as his and the Great Houses would try to break away.  

3. No succession system works like that. Cersei has no claim on his sons' title. If that's the case, she would also gain the Stormlands, and that would upset all the minor lords and banner men of that land. Feudal succession laws existed to prevent that from happening. 

4. If you want to go with a coup then we don't have to talk about line of succession. Just show us the process and the consequences.

The larger part of diplomacy and law in this period is about marriage and rule of succession, what may seem convoluted to us modern people is everyday's work of the feudal diplomats and strategists. The Book constantly reminds us how important it is to memorise the houses and their sigils for this exact reason. Cersei would have know how important Tommen is in her plan and how shaky her position would become without him. Logically, she would have Tommen under watch, but I digress.  

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4 hours ago, Kusanagi said:

She is not of Baratheon Blood! That's the whole point! She is not in line of succession.

She's not Robert's blood, she's Tommen's blood. It's no longer about Robert, it's about Tommen. 

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29 minutes ago, Radish Knight said:

In the show is Cersei or Jaime currently lady/lord of Casterly Rock?

Kevan is the head of House Lannister, he is also the Castellan of Casterly Rock. Jaime would inherit the position and Casterly Rock since he is out the King's Guard now.

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