(Spoilers) - Cersei and the War

[Tyrion1991]

I think in season 7 the war between Daenerys and Cersei has become a major let down. It all boils down to the fact that, ultimately, the plot demands that Daenerys not succeed in defeating Cersei so as to make convincing her to join the Last Alliance matter. However this whole war has thrown up some major problems.

 

1) The show massively understates how powerful Daenerys is at the end of season 6. Daenerys has a few hundred thousand Dothraki, a few thousand Unsullied, the Tyrell army and the Martells; as well as a large Ironborn fleet plus whatever auxiliary elements she had from Essos. Oh and three full grown dragons. That is vastly more than Aegon had to conquer Westeros and Aegon had 7 Kingdoms to conquer; Cersei has two. If we are to believe Tyrion then the Lannister army is "ten thousand men at least" strong. Just take a good long look at point one. Even if we assume this figure is disingenuous and its closer to the book figure of 40-60 thousand, this still leaves Cersei vastly outnumbered.

 

2) If you have read AFFC then you know and the point has been repeatedly made that Cersei is an incompetent who managed to alienate and destroy everything her father built in a few months. She is unstable, she is impulsive and she has terrible judgement. There are open rumours of her incestuous relationship (made public on the show), she has no blood claim to the throne and is a usurper, being a woman means that the principal reason most lords might object to Daenerys goes out the window; Cersei was publicly shamed by the Faith and implicated in the murder of Robert Baratheon. She could never command loyalty and even if she could she would screw it all up.

 

3) Judging by the Tarlys decision to join her, we can infer that this is the shows way of explaining why people don't like Daenerys. Namely, they think she is mad like her father and that she is a foreigner. Of course this assumes that somehow the only word from Essos has been all the bad things. Which seems unlikely when most of the population called her Mysah and all but worshipped her. Plus, three great houses joined her, so her coalition is hardly Essos centric and Daenerys hardly comes across as a foreigner. But then why are they choosing the much more clearly insane Queen over Daenerys? Surely there would also be stories of this beautiful kind hearted Queen who went freeing all the slaves? Why are they believing the mad woman who blew up the Sept of Baelor and murdered hundreds of noblemen?

 

4) Since when have the Lord of Westeros done anything moral. If they are Machiavellian, rational and self interested then all the Lords and Knights would not side with Cersei. Because shes very unlikely to beat her army, let alone 3 full grown dragons. At one point Tyrion says that people follow Cersei out of fear. Are they not afraid of the woman with three huge dragons and the massive army?

 

5) Varys has been useless. Eurons catching the Greyjoy fleet and the Unsullied fleet felt like plot gifts rather than actual battles that made sense. The same goes for the Lannister army getting to Highgarden unnoticed.

 

6) When Daenerys finally does defeat the Lannister army, rather than this shatter any delusions the Lords of Westeros might have about beating Daenerys; they remain loyal to Cersei. Honestly I could not sympathise with those Lannister Knights because they truly must have believed that they could beat somebody with three huge dragons and that Cersei was a good bet as Queen.

 

7) Tyrion gets outsmarted repeatedly by Cersei and show Euron....

 

8) In ADWD, Dany does have setbacks, but in the book these set backs are sent to test her and are part of her accepting her identity as a conquerer rather than a peacemaker. In the show, they serve no purpose to the plot or story. Daenerys wants to kill Cersei and use the Dragons. People invent silly reasons for her not to use them and plans keep failing  because the plot needs Danys invasion to be unsuccessful.

 

9) Somehow killing the Sandsnakes means all of Dorne stops supporting Daenerys...

 

10) Apparently the King of the North and the Vale joining Daenerys isn't enough to convince people which way the winds blowing....

 

11) Apparently it took Jamie seeing the dragons and he is the only person who has clocked on that maybe Cersei might lose....

 

If events played out naturally. Danys dragons would have destroyed Eurons (real hard to miss) fleet. The Lords and Knights would have refused to fight for Cersei. By all rights this should pretty much be the restoration of the monarchy that happened in England 1660. Cersei is that bad a Queen and the forces at her disposal so pitiful that its impossible to imagine people following her or the scale of her success in combatting Daenerys. Theres a reason Varys engineered Cersei being on the throne in the books so as to usher in Aegon.