Let's talk about Cersei !

[Danny-]

She knows what's coming and yet she's still plotting and scheming .

If what she said about Euron is true,both are the only villains left south of the wall.

Ps : Lena is amazing,she makes you hate Cersei.

[We Pay Our Debts]

I love how Cersei is far more competent in the show than she is in the book. In AFFC, I thought she became too pathetic and cartoonish. It's weird because, for the first three books, I preferred Book!Cersei over Show!Cersei in the first 3-4 seasons.

Lena's acting is also incredible and gives so much life and depth to Cersei's character.

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, Danny- said:

If what she said about Euron is true,both are the only villains left south of the wall.

Well, there's only like 10 characters left, so there's not room for too many other villains.

But does this mean you think Qyburn is a misunderstood heroic genius? I could see dismissing Gregor as a mindless mook at this point, but Qyburn's still got his own agency and his own plans. Did you see the look in his eyes when over the wight arm? Oh yes, he has plans, and everyone will see, and then they'll regret having called him mad at the Citadel, mad!, him!, well, in the end, they won't be the ones laughing, no, he'll show them all, the fools!, mwahahahaha!

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

1 hour ago, We Pay Our Debts said:

I love how Cersei is far more competent in the show than she is in the book. In AFFC, I thought she became too pathetic and cartoonish. It's weird because, for the first three books, I preferred Book!Cersei over Show!Cersei in the first 3-4 seasons.

Lena's acting is also incredible and gives so much life and depth to Cersei's character.

Competent?  She is insane.  Completely fucking mad.  

[Hoo]

She makes good decisions.  She's awesome.

[TheMachine]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Well, there's only like 10 characters left, so there's not room for too many other villains.

But does this mean you think Qyburn is a misunderstood heroic genius? I could see dismissing Gregor as a mindless mook at this point, but Qyburn's still got his own agency and his own plans. Did you see the look in his eyes when over the wight arm? Oh yes, he has plans, and everyone will see, and then they'll regret having called him mad at the Citadel, mad!, him!, well, in the end, they won't be the ones laughing, no, he'll show them all, the fools!, mwahahahaha!

This is great. He is going to have the maesters on their knees.

[falcotron]

29 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

Competent?  She is insane.  Completely fucking mad.  

She very competently pulls off her plans, but those plans are batshit crazy.

[Aegon_Blackfyre]

Have to give it to Cersei she's been a step ahead of everyone this season. she formed an alliance with Euron which crippled the Targaryen fleet and knocked Dorne out of the fight, she rallied the lords of the reach to rebel against House Tyrell/Olenna which was the last of Dany's initial Westerosi allies and finally put on a whole show to convince Jon and Dany that Cersei will indeed go North but instead is using it to buy time to hire and bring the Golden Company to Westeros while her enemies are busy fighting the White Walkers.

[Mad Madam Mim]

Cersei seems to be the only one bothering to play the game at the moment, everyone else is too busy playing Scoobie Doo with the NK. 

Was Cersei intending to carry out her plan to pretend to help then break her word from the start? She initially agrees to help on the proviso that Jon gives his word to never take up arms against her and this is portrayed as a deal breaker. If her plan was to pretend to help/then break her word all along then this would be pointless as surely when she breaks her word then Jon is not honour bound to keep his and can take up arms against her again? If she was planning to break her word from the start then she would not have needed to add the Jon proviso and would have just pretended to agree regardless.  This suggests to me she may have actually meant what she said at the time when she agreed to help (as she saw some benefit to her).

If we follow this logic then it appears it is only after she walked off and had a chat with Tyrion that her plan changed.

[Snormund]

As others have said the thing you have to understand with Cersei is that she is batshit insane. Once you realize this her actions start to make sense. 

[Lorathi]

3 hours ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

Competent?  She is insane.  Completely fucking mad.  

I hate that she's apparently the final boss. After Ned's execution, all the talk was about how Game of Thrones was a different type of story. Mistakes and bad decisions get you killed in Westeros, no matter if you're a good person or a main character. With Cersei serving as the main villain, that idea has been turned into a joke. This is a woman who only survived the 1st season due to uncanny luck. She and Jaime were super careless with the incest, so they had to rely on: 1) Littlefinger deciding to kill Jon Arryn for his own reasons, 2) Ned Stark being stupid enough to warn Cersei that he knew, and 3) Bran waking up with amnesia.

Now Littlefinger, who regularly played Cersei for a fool and would have made an interesting final villain, is dead. Euron, who would make a fresh, exciting final villain, seems to be there only to prop up Cersei's reign. Varys could have been a great final villain, given his unclear motivations and large spy network. But we get Cersei, who has been outsmarted too many times to count.

In fairness, she is still standing. But after Margaery and the High Sparrow completely outmaneuvered her, I have to wonder what her Plan B was if Qyburn didn't happen to find a ton of wildfire laying around that nobody knew about for 20 years (which they interestingly couldn't find when they desperately needed it to defeat Stannis). But then, Mary Sue Qyburn is conveniently an amazing doctor, engineer, spymaster, and Hand.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

56 minutes ago, Mad Madam Mim said:

Cersei seems to be the only one bothering to play the game at the moment, everyone else is too busy playing Scoobie Doo with the NK. 

Was Cersei intending to carry out her plan to pretend to help then break her word from the start? She initially agrees to help on the proviso that Jon gives his word to never take up arms against her and this is portrayed as a deal breaker. If her plan was to pretend to help/then break her word all along then this would be pointless as surely when she breaks her word then Jon is not honour bound to keep his and can take up arms against her again? If she was planning to break her word from the start then she would not have needed to add the Jon proviso and would have just pretended to agree regardless.  This suggests to me she may have actually meant what she said at the time when she agreed to help (as she saw some benefit to her).

If we follow this logic then it appears it is only after she walked off and had a chat with Tyrion that her plan changed.

 

The game of thrones is a game that is completely meaningless now that the army of the dead is past the Wall.  It's like showing up to an American football game with a bat and glove. 

She is so blinded by rage and hunger for revenge and power that she can't see the forest through the trees.  

If Cersei was smart she would have told Tyrion that she would bend the knee to Danerys if and only if she was allowed to return to Casterly Rock unharmed and all family titles they had prior to Robert's Rebellion would still apply to her family along with a cash settlement.  Especially since Tyrion knows she is pregnant.  He would have easily advised Dany to take that deal.  The Iron Throne means nothing if everyone is dead, and Kings Landing has offered her nothing but pain and misery since she got there anyway.  But, she is insane, and paranoid, and her thirst for power and revenge is unquenchable.  

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Mad Madam Mim said:

If she was planning to break her word from the start then she would not have needed to add the Jon proviso and would have just pretended to agree regardless. 

I think she planned the Jon proviso from the start, as part of her act.

Nobody would believe Cersei suddenly being shocked into a conversion to the side of good.

But everyone believed Cersei being shocked into considering taking the good side, but still being Cersei enough to insist on something in return anyway. Especially when she held firm on that point so stubbornly that even Jaime couldn't talk her out of it, and only a long, emotional conversation with Tyrion about her unborn child could sway her. That's believable from Cersei.

It was a clever plan, and it worked. But it was batshit crazy because what she accomplished was a crazy thing to try to accomplish. (Even forgetting the fact that she didn't bring Jaime in on it, so he ended up falling for it the same as everyone else and abandoning her.)

[falcotron]

23 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

It's like showing up to an American football game with a bat and glove. 

How well do you think a wide receiver's padding works against a baseball bat?

[Apoplexy]

So what does Cersei plan to do now? She did say the AoD will hit the north first, and if the north is defeated, all the dead northerners come for her along with the existing army. What does she hope to achieve by having a 20,000 strong GC by her side?

[falcotron]

7 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

So what does Cersei plan to do now? She did say the AoD will hit the north first, and if the north is defeated, all the dead northerners come for her along with the existing army. What does she hope to achieve by having a 20,000 strong GC by her side?

She's going to invite the Night King over for dinner, offer him bread and salt, and that's when Qyburn flips the switch on her wight control helmet. She has the Night King's own army swarm in and massacre all of the Walkers. And now she has an army of millions to conquer the world.

[Capo Ferro]

2 hours ago, falcotron said:

She very competently pulls off her plans, but those plans are batshit crazy.

I don't think that's right - they're more than that, they're self defeating.  She created the faith militant and it nearly led to her downfall.  She saved herself only by blowing up the Sept and maybe the most inexplicable thing in the show is how she did not suffer more for having done so.  Now she is seems to be running down a similarly foolhardy path by making a company of mercenary soldiers who its been made quite clear will answer, in the end, to the iron bank her principal source of power.  She is putting herself into the thrall of the iron bank because in her blind desire to meet a perceived threat she ignores the vulnerabilities doing so will create, much as she put herself in the thrall of the faith militant in a blind desire to meet a perceived threat while ignoring the vulnerabilities that created.  Cersei isn't just crazy, she is short-sighted and incapable of learning from mistakes. Her belief in her own cleverness and cunning is blinding her to the stupidity of what she's doing and so making a hash of things.

Competence can't really be judged on a truncated narrative -- a plot that hasn't backfired yet isn't competent until it backfires.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

It was definitely her plan all along to betray them.  If it wasn't Euron wouldn't have left.  And remember Euron left before Jon said he was loyal to Dany.  

[Apoplexy]

17 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

It was definitely her plan all along to betray them.  If it wasn't Euron wouldn't have left.  And remember Euron left before Jon said he was loyal to Dany.  

Which begs the question what is her endgoal. How does she plan to defeat all her enemies, including the dead. Despite her craziness, she must have some plan in mind, no matter how crazy.

[falcotron]

33 minutes ago, Capo Ferro said:

I don't think that's right - they're more than that, they're self defeating.

OK, that's probably a better way to put it than batshit crazy.

But really, it's a quibble whether you can her competent in the short term because she accomplishes her goals but those goals are insane, or incompetent in the long term because she can't come up with goals that actually get her to a better position. Ultimately, they come to the same thing.