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Cersei Lannister the Sympathetic Villain


Longspear Ryk

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There is also the fact that she exhibits absolutely no sympathy for anyone else, ever.

Even when she thinks she's suffering, such as when Joff dies or when she hears about Mycella....within minutes....her alleged misery turns to rage and is focused externally on who can I kill. Sympathy for her alleged, beloved brother Jamie, the second he dares to question her? No, none there either. She is as incapable of sympathy as she is of love.

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There is also the fact that she exhibits absolutely no sympathy for anyone else, ever.

Even when she thinks she's suffering, such as when Joff dies or when she hears about Mycella....within minutes....her alleged misery turns to rage and is focused externally on who can I kill. Sympathy for her alleged, beloved brother Jamie, the second he dares to question her? No, none there either. She is as incapable of sympathy as she is of love.

But Cersei isn't evil. She is just misunderstood.
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I'd be substantially more comfortable using Robert's admitted mistreatment, to speak lightly, of Cersei as a rationale/excuse/reason for her mental state now ... if she hadn't already shown herself to be a murderer at best and a sociopath at worst by murdering Melara. Melara did absolutely nothing to her except cop to a crush on Jaime, which was about Cersei's jealous possession of him. That's not something you can blame on cheating or marital rape.

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I'd be substantially more comfortable using Robert's admitted mistreatment, to speak lightly, of Cersei as a rationale/excuse/reason for her mental state now ... if she hadn't already shown herself to be a murderer at best and a sociopath at worst by murdering Melara. Melara did absolutely nothing to her except cop to a crush on Jaime, which was about Cersei's jealous possession of him. That's not something you can blame on cheating or marital rape.

plus it shows her greediness from a young age, seeing as how she murdered Melara when she was soncertain she was going to marry the crown prince rhaegar
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I don't find Cersei particularly sympathetic. What I do find interesting is GRRMs take a rulers; they all seem inept, crazy, bad- Aerys, Robert, Joffrey, Cersei, Dany, you would think from random chance that one would have been ok.. others don't really get a chance to demonstrate ability over an extended time period.

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Just because the author of the article has a different opinion than you doesn't make her an idiot.

I would absolutely agree that disagreeing with me and other posters here does not necessitate being an idiot. Believing that Cersei Lannister, malicious and cruel even as a child, is sympathetic is what drew the insults. One can have empathy for Cersei, or Theon, but that's quite different than sympathy.

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Pfffffftttt. Clearly show only perspective. Call me when you find out about her having innocents sent to be tortured/killed/turned into fucking ninja turtles/ whatever Qyburn did down there.

I have about as much sympathy as I do for Biter or Ramsay. I.e. zeeeeeeeeeeeeero.

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There are some moments when we are "invited" to feel sympathy for her, most notably her Walk of Shame, but I don't consider Cersei a sympathetic character per se. If G.R.R.Martin had intended her to be sympathetic, he wouldn't have made so dark grey in the first place. I suppose he wanted to write Cersei as someone who is a horrible person and is guilty of many terrible things, but who is still capable of suffering like everybody else.

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I would absolutely agree that disagreeing with me and other posters here does not necessitate being an idiot. Believing that Cersei Lannister, malicious and cruel even as a child, is sympathetic is what drew the insults. One can have empathy for Cersei, or Theon, but that's quite different than sympathy.

There's no reason for insults. Martin has said he loves all his POV characters, so clearly he thinks there's something sympathetic in each of them.

I thought I'd be delighted by the Walk of Shame. By the end of it, I was willing Cersei to endure it, and hating the people who ordered it.

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To me, the WoS is definitely a sympathetic moment in Cersei's story arc. I wouldn't wish that type of sexually humiliating punishment on anyone. Cersei deserves to pay for her crimes, but I find a punishment where a person, male or female, is stripped down naked, exposed to public ridicule, and threatened by a crowd of people to be a form of sexual assault. Enjoying reading about Cersei going through something that traumatic, esp when we are actually inside her head during the ordeal, is unfathomable to me. It's understandable to me that many people feel no sympathy for Cersei - she truly is a villain guilty of unspeakable crimes (child murder, torture, sending people to Qyburn), but there's an enormous gulf between feeling no sympathy for Cersei while she is being humiliated and deriving pleasure from the humiliation.

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Really hard to tell yet what the High Sparrow's motives are. If he fully disbelives Cersei, he is a very good poker player and doesn't reveal that to Cersei or the reader. Was the Walk to in essence cripple Cersei politically? Was it just the High Sparrow's and the religions hangup about sex? Or is he just extracting whatever type of punishment he can?

Not even guranteed the WOS ruined her politically yet. Kevan Lannister thought so, which implies it strongly. But he isn't the omnipotent master of politics Varys is.

Well, Varys himself wasn't omniscient nor omnipotent. I'm pretty sure Eddard's beheading took him by complete surprise.

And right now, its hard not to call the High Sparrow a master of the game. The dude has a very large following of septons, got the traditionally close to the nobility Most Devout to vote him in as the High Sparrow, quickly institute a number of reforms aimed at reducing corruption in the Faith, and beat Cersei at politics. All without seeming to compromise his own very strict moral code.

Honestly, I really like the idea of a new "player" emerging as a result of the chaos Varys and Littlefinger thought they could control and use. If he's just a one trick poney who whips people into confessing the truth, fine, I guess. Bit disappointing, is all.

The Walk in the Park was done imo, because Cersei slighted the Faith by having the old high septon killed.

Please tell me you are ESL. I have never heard the word "slight" and "killed" in the same sentence. I mean, it was murder. The murder of the titular head of an organization. That isn't a slight, that is, well, about as bad a thing you can do an organization. Its also just a terrible thing to do, and even by the grey laws of Westeros, definitely illegal. A slight is not getting invite to the party, or wearing white to a wedding when you are not the bride.

Remember, by killing him, Cersei is basically saying/showing that she defying the religion and if she escapes punishment she can basically say that she is nearly equal or above the gods. And that kind of hubris is looked down upon in Westeros. Its like how they say Tywin Lannister was punished with a dwarf child for thinking himself above a king. Cersei was being punished for thinking herself equal to the gods or so.

The High Sparrow clearly had evidence that Cersei was guilty of this, yet she insisted on a trial of combat which we all know is bullshit. The Sparrow is a smart guy, he should know that trial by combat is bull and he couldn't just let Cersei get away with her crimes. So he decided to baptize Cersei. By having her stripped naked and walked through King's Landing, his message was more "you are a mortal, aging woman, a fallible human" and not solely just because he's a misogynist. If you reread his conversation with Cersei, you will find that he thinks Cersei having sex was trivial compared to her other crimes.

Hell, even Kevan Lannister might have said something like.

"In gold and silk and emeralds Cersei had been a queen, the next thing to a goddess; naked, she was only human, an aging woman with stretch marks on her belly and teats that had begun to sag … as the shrews in the crowds had been glad to point out to their husbands and lovers."

I can't help but feel this comparison wasn't too much of a coincidence.

Point is, the walk of shame was to remind Cersei she was a human, no matter how high she went or how much power she amassed.

If I read you right, you think the Faith's punishment was punishing Cersei's pride... not punishing her involvement in the murder of a High Septon, her attempt to frame her daughter in law for treason, her plan to assassinate Jon Snow (which I'm guessing Kettleblack confessed to), nor the incest/treason.

Not much to argue about that, other than to say I disagree.

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To me, the WoS is definitely a sympathetic moment in Cersei's story arc. I wouldn't wish that type of sexually humiliating punishment on anyone. Cersei deserves to pay for her crimes, but I find a punishment where a person, male or female, is stripped down naked, exposed to public ridicule, and threatened by a crowd of people to be a form of sexual assault. Enjoying reading about Cersei going through something that traumatic, esp when we are actually inside her head during the ordeal, is unfathomable to me. It's understandable to me that many people feel no sympathy for Cersei - she truly is a villain guilty of unspeakable crimes (child murder, torture, sending people to Qyburn), but there's an enormous gulf between feeling no sympathy for Cersei while she is being humiliated and deriving pleasure from the humiliation.

It's strange. If Cersei was being led to the Block, it would be less harrowing.

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So is the opinion further validated because a greater amount of people subscribe to it? Shouldn't opinions stand and fall entirely on their own merits, and be open to whatever ridicule and derision they may face?

I'd say an opinion held by 30 or so people is more valid than an opinion held by 0.

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I think it depends on how informed those people are. If we have 30 of Cerseis household staff saying she was sympathetic for instance I would think it was valid.

We have veered off topic here. He was making a compiarison between Cersei and Ramsay, so I made the comment about how there ARE people who like Cersei, which cannot be said for Ramsay, to show the unfairness of the remark.

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