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Why Cersei didn't break prophecy by getting pregnant for the fourth time?


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5 hours ago, Tianzi said:

Because the prophecy was probably ass-pulled by Martin around AFFC.

Similar question: why didn't she fear Sansa while she was Joff's fiancee? It makes sense that Cersei was more wary of Marg based on her personality and her family's influences, but if it were of the prophecy, Sansa would have been seen as a danger as well.

You could be right about Sansa's part. But we get enough indication in the second and third book that Cersei thinks Tyrion will kill Joffrey.

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16 minutes ago, Brandon Baratheon said:

You could be right about Sansa's part. But we get enough indication in the second and third book that Cersei thinks Tyrion will kill Joffrey.

Cersei hates and misjudges Tyrion, but so does Tywin for example. And less prejudiced people (and far more sensible than Cersei) believe that Tyrion killed Joff, so the hate vibe between them must have been convincing. Also, as far as we know, Cersei saw Tyrion as a monster as soon as he was born, before the prophecy. (that's why I don't like the prophecy - everything with 'who Cersei hates' works perfectly fine without it, it looks like it's put there to explain Cersei's quite sudden sanity slippage and lose of contact with reality).

But alas, George's made it canon. So like others I suppose she just didn't treat it seriously enough before/just didn't get pregnant with Jaime for the third time. And I kind of see why she wouldn't bear to get a child with Robert, at least before prospects started looking deadly.

Btw, this prophecy didn't even mention that the valonquar will be the one who kills her children (and Olenna certainly isn't a good candidate).

49 minutes ago, The Bastards Giant Friend said:

Well if that was the case, maybe the witch is one of those pro-lifers who would say her abortion and/or (possible) miscarriages counted toward her three.

Um, then her pregnancy with Robert would have counted?

(that would put the existence of Benioff and Weiss' 'cute blackhaired boy' in a quite ironic light :D )

5 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Because there is a chance she is pregnant now and doesn't know it yet, but her tight dresses and approx 8-9 weeks since last sex with Jaime do ;)

Haha, I really like that idea (poor child, with all her drinking...), and it wouldn't even have to be Jaime's, it could be Kettleblack's or even the Moon Boy's for all we know!

Let's do some crackpottery: this child will be the actual valonquar, J, M and T's little brother, whose very existence will cause Cersei's downfall!

(...What? People've come so far as to theorize about Sandor Clegane being the valonquar, so...)

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6 hours ago, Tianzi said:

imilar question: why didn't she fear Sansa while she was Joff's fiancee?

Cersei never thought much of Sansa, regarding her as a stupid, foolish child, easily manipulated, and having little initiative. Margaery, on the other hand, was of age, twice married, of a high ranking, politically astute family and was thus an obvious threat. Plus, Margaery was still young and beautiful. Cersei remained impressive in her gowns, but was an object of laughter and ridicule naked. Three+ babies can do that for ya, if you don't work hard on it.

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1 hour ago, Brandon Baratheon said:

Prophecy says three children. She could stop after Joffrey and Myrcella.

The witch's prophecy stated two things concerning her children: that she would have three of them, and that they would die young. If Cersei got pregnant and aborted it, the prophecy would still apply.

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12 minutes ago, zandru said:

Cersei never thought much of Sansa, regarding her as a stupid, foolish child, easily manipulated, and having little initiative. Margaery, on the other hand, was of age, twice married, of a high ranking, politically astute family and was thus an obvious threat. Plus, Margaery was still young and beautiful. Cersei remained impressive in her gowns, but was an object of laughter and ridicule naked. Three+ babies can do that for ya, if you don't work hard on it.

That's why I buy Cersei fearing Marg more than Sansa based on their personalities/familiar background, but prophecy only mentiones beauty and new queenly status, which placed Sansa as a danger as well.

11 minutes ago, James Steller said:

The witch's prophecy stated two things concerning her children: that she would have three of them, and that they would die young. If Cersei got pregnant and aborted it, the prophecy would still apply.

She did.

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15 minutes ago, James Steller said:

The witch's prophecy stated two things concerning her children: that she would have three of them, and that they would die young. If Cersei got pregnant and aborted it, the prophecy would still apply.

 With your logic she could get pregnant three times from Robert and abort them. Then she could have children from Jaime.

Or prophecy will be fullfilled if Myrcella dies since she will be the third child Cersei lost after child from Robert and Joffrey.

With the word "stop" I mean to stop sex with Jaime, not moontea. Do you think mother can't do this for her child? Let's say Cersei aborts Robert's child and has only Joffrey. Even Joffrey dies prophecy need the third child.

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3 hours ago, Horse of Kent said:

Which is why it makes a so much better story if Jaime is the valonqar than if Tyrion is.

Exactly the other way around imo. She believes it is Tyrion, so she try's to have him killed to avoid the prophecy, in the process she drives Tyrion to the edge making him destroy her. That is a self fulfilling prophecy. If she was friendly and kind to him they would never have been enemies. Jaime wouldn't be a self fulfilling prophecy, she never try's to avoid it because she never considers it a possibility.

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25 minutes ago, Makk said:

Exactly the other way around imo. She believes it is Tyrion, so she try's to have him killed to avoid the prophecy, in the process she drives Tyrion to the edge making him destroy her. That is a self fulfilling prophecy. If she was friendly and kind to him they would never have been enemies. Jaime wouldn't be a self fulfilling prophecy, she never try's to avoid it because she never considers it a possibility.

Cersei hated Tyrion from the moment he was born a dwarf and killer of her mother. She only tries to have him killed openly - there is insufficient evidence to conclude that she sent Ser Mandon - once Joffrey dies, and even that is through legal means. Cersei only seems truly fixated on bringing Tyrion down when he escapes, killing Tywin, reminding her of Maggy's prophecy. There is no evidence that the valonqar prophecy factored into her hatred beforehand or was treated as anything other than the utterances of a quack. By the time her decline into paranoia begins, Tyrion has gone and already has a motive to want revenge on Cersei. Instead it is Jaime who turns away from her at this point.

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7 hours ago, Tianzi said:

Because the prophecy was probably ass-pulled by Martin around AFFC.

Similar question: why didn't she fear Sansa while she was Joff's fiancee? It makes sense that Cersei was more wary of Marg based on her personality and her family's influences, but if it were of the prophecy, Sansa would have been seen as a danger as well.

accurate. hell why didn't she just kill tyrion after finding out about the prophecy? considering she was capable of murder from a young age since she killed melara.

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7 minutes ago, Tifani said:

Because the prophecy was a damn retcon from GRRM so Cersei could crash and burn at the end of AFFC for plot purposes. 

Why is it a retcon when she was already shown to have terrible judgement all the way back in GOT and right through the rest of the books?  Her behavior in having lady killed and alienating Ned before they even got to KL shows her narcissism, absolute lack of any perspective and poor judgement and things continued on from there.  The prophecy from a plot point is wholly unnecessary...she was already a bad ruler, already hateful, already impulsive, already had terrible judgement....I'm not really sure why he included it to be truthful.  But she was most certainly set up to crash and burn even without it.

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3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Why is it a retcon when she was already shown to have terrible judgement all the way back in GOT and right through the rest of the books?  Her behavior in having lady killed and alienating Ned before they even got to KL shows her narcissism and poor judgement and things continued on from there.  The prophecy from a plot point is wholly unnecessary...she was already a bad ruler, already hateful, already impulsive, already had terrible judgement....I'm not really sure why he included it to be truthful.  But she was most certainly set up to crash and burn even without it.

its a retcon because it was a clear and obvious way that GRRM could make her ruin her life and KL after scrapping the 5 year gap. do you HONESTLY think the prophecy would still exist if he had gone with the 5 year gap???? if the prophecy was something she had always known and something that GRRM always planned from the beginning.....

then why didn't young cersei just kill or attempt to kill tyrion after she heard about the prophecy when she was 10 y/o? Since she killed Melara...you would think she would try to kill Tyrion too in order to try to stop it.

you're missing my point. i'm not saying that cersei would have acted like a totally sane person in AFFC if the prophecy didn't exist simply that it was a way from GRRM to speed up the process of fucking up the lannister/tyrell alliance and the rest of the KL chaos that will inevitably come in TWOW. I agree that Cersei made a lot of terrible decisions in the earlier books, but I feel like those bad decisions were made out of pride, arrogance and power-hungriness not prophecy paranoia lol. 

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3 minutes ago, Tifani said:

its a retcon because it was a clear and obvious way that GRRM could make her ruin her life and KL after scrapping the 5 year gap. do you HONESTLY think the prophecy would still exist if he had gone with the 5 year gap???? if the prophecy was something she had always known and something that GRRM always planned from the beginning.....

then why didn't young cersei just kill or attempt to kill tyrion after she heard about the prophecy when she was 10 y/o? Since she killed Melara...you would think she would try to kill Tyrion too in order to try to stop it.

you're missing my point. i'm not saying that cersei would have acted like a totally sane person in AFFC if the prophecy didn't exist simply that it was a way from GRRM to speed up the process of fucking up the lannister/tyrell alliance and the rest of the KL chaos that will inevitably come in TWOW. I agree that Cersei made a lot of terrible decisions in the earlier books, but I feel like those bad decisions were made out of pride, arrogance and power-hungriness not prophecy paranoia lol. 

Her worst decisions don't even have anything to do with the prophecy.  She rearms the faith and thinks she made a great move. She refuses to pay the Iron Bank because she has terrible judgment.  She has always hated Tyrion as someone else said, and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence against him in Joff's death.  It's true she tries to frame Marg...but she also throws Sansa away, she could have maintained her as an ally, Sansa still trusted and loved her even after her father was arrested, if she had only put a tiny bit of effort into it...but instead she lets Joff abuse her, so still alienates her for no reason.

Killing Melara is what started the whole ball rolling...this was the first step to her fulfilling the prophecy, if she had not pushed Melara into the well then the prophecy(s) would have no sway...but she does....

I don't think the prophecy was necessary to speed up her failure, she has been failing since GOT, and god knows, her paranoia and self delusion was about the only thing interesting in Feast.

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3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Her worst decisions don't even have anything to do with the prophecy.  She rearms the faith and thinks she made a great move. She refuses to pay the Iron Bank because she has terrible judgment.  She has always hated Tyrion as someone else said, and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence against him in Joff's death.  It's true she tries to frame Marg...but she also throws Sansa away, she could have maintained her as an ally, Sansa still trusted and loved her even after her father was arrested, if she had only put a tiny bit of effort into it...but instead she lets Joff abuse her, so still alienates her for no reason.

Killing Melara is what started the whole ball rolling...this was the first step to her fulfilling the prophecy, if she had not pushed Melara into the well then the prophecy(s) would have no sway...but she does....

I don't think the prophecy was necessary to speed up her failure, she has been failing since GOT, and god knows, her paranoia and self delusion was about the only thing interesting in Feast.

you just keep missing the point. you don't need to give me a plot summary of the books. i've read them lol. and i'm not disagreeing with you that cersei is a bad politician and a bad person. all i'm saying is that i don't think that AGOT-ASOS Cersei's mistakes seem to be influenced in any way about prophecy and that her behavior in those books doesn't match with the prophecy paranoia that we see from her in AFFC. she hated sansa but she hated her because she thought sansa was a naive and delusional stupid little girl not because she thought that sansa was going to end up being a queen who would destroy her. furthermore none of her tyrion hatred seems to stem from her fearing that he would kill her but because he's an ugly dwarf who "killed" her mother.

also why are you conveniently ignoring my question of "why didn't she kill tyrion at an early age when she killed melara"?

here's what I think: I think if Martin had kept the 5-year gap then Cersei's failure and mistakes in AFFC would have just been more of an extension of the type of mistakes she made in AGOT-ASOS. Basically mistakes made from hubris, power-hungriness and a fucked up cynical POV of the world. If he had kept the 5 year-gap then Margaery would also have been a 21 year old in AFFC which would mean that probably would have end up being a more active player and that Martin could have made more believalby threatening.

But he scrapped the 5-year gap and he needed to ramp up all of Cersei's flaws and anxieties up 50 notches to get to the same plot point that originally would have happened over the course of years instead of a couple of months. And I believe that the prophecy was his solution to that. I don't for a second believe that it would exist if the 5-year gap still existed because I don't think any of Cersei's previous mistakes correlate with its existence. 

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We just disagree then.  

You could have everything happen in Feast exactly as it happened and no prophecy and it would be a perfectly believable chain of events  that since she was always impulsive, arrogant, selfish, power hungry, suspicious and cruel that the stress simply made her more so and more paranoid.  She would still want to get rid of Marg and rule herself because she thinks she is Tywin Lannister only no one recognized it because the patriarchy.

I liked the prophecy as it confirmed my belief she was a sociopath.

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7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

We just disagree then.  

You could have everything happen in Feast exactly as it happened and no prophecy and it would be a perfectly believable chain of events  that since she was always impulsive, arrogant, selfish, power hungry, suspicious and cruel that the stress simply made her more so and more paranoid.  She would still want to get rid of Marg and rule herself because she thinks she is Tywin Lannister only no one recognized it because the patriarchy.

I liked the prophecy as it confirmed my belief she was a sociopath.

thats fine. i don't care that you disagree with me. although i don't even get why you bothered to reply to me because you basically ignored everything i said even though i never disagreed with you that cersei is a fucked up messy person. it seems like you can't wrap your head around that cersei is a fictional character and not a real person and that GRRM made some really specific writing choices with her and not all of them make sense. seriously that was a goddamn fucking waste. 

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2 minutes ago, Tifani said:

thats fine. i don't care that you disagree with me. although i don't even get why you bothered to reply to me because you basically ignored everything i said even though i never disagreed with you that cersei is a fucked up messy person. seriously that was a goddamn fucking waste. 

LMAO,  I gave you my take on it, and explained in detail why I don't agree, that's not 'ignoring everything you said' that is giving you my reasons why I don't agree.  She didn't kill Tyrion for any number of possible reasons, she was afraid her brother or father would find out, she thought the prophecy was thwarted by killing Melara and ensuring no one ever spoke of it, and only when Joff died did her fear resurface, she feared the curse of kinslaying....

 

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18 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

LMAO,  I gave you my take on it, and explained in detail why I don't agree, that's not 'ignoring everything you said' that is giving you my reasons why I don't agree.  She didn't kill Tyrion for any number of possible reasons, she was afraid her brother or father would find out, she thought the prophecy was thwarted by killing Melara and ensuring no one ever spoke of it, and only when Joff died did her fear resurface, she feared the curse of kinslaying....

 

lol you've only given your reasons on why she didn't kill tyrion now. not before. don't try to backtrack this shit.although my argument for that would be that not once, like ever has cersei ever been shown to fear the curse of kinslaying. and that it only starts to pop in her head again because joffrey died is a lame excuse imo and even further proof that its a retcon. oh just how CONVENIENT that we find out there's a prophecy about cersei's kids dying right after one of them dies lol. 

also the fact that you keep repeating yourself about how cersei is a fool and x, x and x even without the prophecy is only weakening your argument that it isn't retcon by Martin, you do realize that don't you? you do realize that you're essentially just saying that Maggy's prophecy serves no purpose for Cersei's mindset or character development or story. how the fuck is it not something that Martin just pulled out of his ass then? once again i repeat, you can't wrap your head around that cersei is a fictional character and not a real person and that GRRM made some really specific writing choices for her. 

 

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