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Cersei Lannister the Sympathetic Villain


Longspear Ryk

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Huffington post posted up an article about the 9 most sympathetic book villains. They have Cersei at number 8!

Hope this wasn't posted i tried to search, and it didnt come up, but you know how the search is....

8. Cersei Lannister from "A Song of Ice and Fire" series

Cersei gets a bad rap. Yes, she has incestuous sex with her brother, and she's super protective of her horrible son Joffrey. But again, what mother ISN'T protective of her son, however horrible he may be? Cersei longs to be a powerful woman in an environment where women are not taken seriously. We feel that. Her deceased husband, Robert Baratheon, was always bedding new women and had bastard children all over the city. Her father, Tywin, tells her she is no longer wanted on the king's council and that he wants to marry her off to someone. Girlfriend is a proud woman, and she is constantly shown "her place." That sucks.

http://www.huffingto...tm_hp_ref=books

honestly for a second here i almost didnt post it, because i feel like the author of the article is an idiot and doesnt really explain much... but oh well..

EDIT: I called the writer of the article an idiot, because of the way the article was written and the lack of depth and support the author gave. It had nothing to do with her differing opinion, and for the two posters that suggested that it had to do with that, ARE idiots because no where in my post did i even suggest my opinion on Cersei being Sympathetic. So may the others take you

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HuffPo used to be a leftie blog until Arriane Huffington pumped up its value using unpaid celebrity guest authors, then sold the site for millions. Now it's an electronic tabloid with half the content devoted to wardrobe malfunctions and 'who's on what diet?' posts. Who cares what the hacks there say?

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8. Cersei Lannister from "A Song of Ice and Fire" series

Cersei gets a bad rap. Yes, she has incestuous sex with her brother, and she's super protective of her horrible son Joffrey. But again, what mother ISN'T protective of her son, however horrible he may be? Cersei longs to be a powerful woman in an environment where women are not taken seriously. We feel that. Her deceased husband, Robert Baratheon, was always bedding new women and had bastard children all over the city. Her father, Tywin, tells her she is no longer wanted on the king's council and that he wants to marry her off to someone. Girlfriend is a proud woman, and she is constantly shown "her place." That sucks.

As opposed to non-incestuous sex with her brother? 'Author of the piece is an idiot' sounds about right to me.

That said, I do think Cersei is one of the more sympathetic villains in ASoIaF.

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There are certain aspects to Cersei that I am extremely sympathetic to: her indignation at the patriarchal system that oppresses her for no reason other than her gender (I am NOT saying that she deserves to be in power), Robert Baratheon definitely abused her, and she does love her children - not in a perfect healthy way because she doesn't know what that is, but she loves them as much as she is able.

I haven't read the entire HuffPo article, but that paragraph doesn't strike me as idiocy. It's only saying that there is room for some sympathy for her, and I agree with that.

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I don't get this reading of Cersei. She is someone that has always been given everything she ever wanted and surrounded by yes-men so when she wants power she thinks she can stamp her foot and demand it. There are female characters in asoiaf who step into male roles or take charge but they put the work in and fight for it. Cersei wants to be a game player but she never tries to improve her mind or make friends. It's easy to read the POV chapters and think "poor Cersei" but her self-pity is part of her problem because most people are worse off than her and she does nothing to improve her situation other than trying to manipulate others into doing the hard work for her. She isn't even good at that. As LF says people like her for her money and looks but she thinks she's a genius as no one has ever challenged that belief. Well not until Tywin realised she was screwing things up and told her so but she just wrote that truth off as him underestimating her because she was a woman. Just because she thinks that it doesn't make it the truth, Cersei has been known to be wrong, often, and slightly crazy.

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I'm inclined to agree, she isn't necessarily an idiot. Her opinion on the other hand is idiotic.

No, it's not. There are valid reasons for thinking Cersei is sympathetic. It's very subjective, of course, but it's not like she's a Ramsay type villain with absolutely nothing evoking sympathy towards her whatsoever.

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No, it's not. There are valid reasons for thinking Cersei is sympathetic. It's very subjective, of course, but it's not like she's a Ramsay type villain with absolutely nothing evoking sympathy towards her whatsoever.

Would my opinion be idiotic if I claimed that Ramsay is more sympathetic than Cersei because he suffers from psychopathy and is bereft of any meaningful emotion? Meanwhile Cersei knows full well all the evil and suffering she causes but is comfortable rationalizing it away in favour of self advanvement.

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The disrespect Cersei gets isn't just because she's a woman, it's because she's an inept, cruel and ineffective ruler. I get that sexism exists but let's not use it as a lazy catch-all, mmkay? I don't recall anyone telling Cersei she couldn't be queen regent because of her gender or not taking orders from her; the friction arises when it's apparent that she's a terrible ruler who has absolutely no control over her spoiled bitch of a son. If she keeps Joffrey in line and promotes people based on merit and not ass-kissing, she doesn't have the problems she does. Not rocket science.

Robert was a shit husband to Cersei, there's no denying it. But it also doesn't excuse the many awful things she's done that have absolutely nothing to do with him, including murdering her childhood friend and sending people to Qyburn's mad scientist torture dungeon. Did Robert time travel back and make her shove a girl down a well?

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Sounds like somebody who didn't read the books. According to that article the only bad thing Cersei has done was have sex with Jaime and try to be a strong woman in a man's world. It doesn't even touch her crimes and what she's done.

If that person has read the books and still thinks that way, then I think they have to reread her chapters without the golden tinted glasses on.

Cersei deserves everything she has gotten, plus much, much more.

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Would my opinion be idiotic if I claimed that Ramsay is more sympathetic than Cersei because he suffers from psychopathy and is bereft of any meaningful emotion? Meanwhile Cersei knows full well all the evil and suffering she causes but is comfortable rationalizing it away in favour of self advanvement.

You would be completely entitled to that opinion, as would others be to disagree with it. The only difference between it and the authors' is that some people actually arrive at the authors' conclusion. I'd be hard pressed to find somebody defend Ramsay or Ser Gregor for instance, while Cersei actually has apologists.

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