Cercei's plot is severely lacking(Spoilers)

[vicktoryrising]

I am so disappointed in how slowly Cercei's downfall is taking place, leading me to wonder if it will even occur this season, as it happened in the fourth book. I love how her devious plots smack her in the face, and am afraid it may not even happen. And Lady Merryweather! That would have been great TV!

[jugdesh258]

Don't understand the slow thing. I think most say they are speeding the story to catch up to the last written book. In 5 episode she has sent off everyone that might compete for rule in Tommen's name. I think things will start to go go sour starting now after whatever plays out with Loras

I think it will happen. I recall Lena Headley being interviewed about nude walk scene. Not that I would expect that we will actually see her on display for pleasure of viewers or HBO nude quota.

If there is to be trial by combat that might not occur until next year since that has not happened in book.

[Ser Geoffrey the Fabulous]

When the Queen of Thorns comes back to King's Landing she'll take care of Cercei. When Tywin threatened her with revealing Loras' sexuality before the weddings, she threw his children's incest right back at him. Expect the same thing to happen, but with the High Sparrow in the middle this time.

[Good Guy Garlan]

I have to agree with the OP. I'm doing this thing lately where I pretend "Veep" is an adaptation of Cersei's chapters.

Like, Selina is Cersei (obviously), trying (and failing epically) to rule a country with a team of sycophants, idiots, and traitors.

In the last episode, for example, I imagined Amy's epic rant to Selina was Kevan telling Cersei off, and it somehow felt more real than what GoT did

[TheKitttenGuard]

Cersei will most likely be seized by the Faith in episode 6.

I do not see how are downfall is somehow slow. Enough complaints of the suddeness of Faith Militant, so I do not see how her being seized in the same episode would of been viewed as anything as being sudden ando rushed.

[Ser Pounce FTW]

I am so disappointed in how slowly Cercei's downfall is taking place, leading me to wonder if it will even occur this season, as it happened in the fourth book. I love how her devious plots smack her in the face, and am afraid it may not even happen. And Lady Merryweather! That would have been great TV!

I don't think it's going any slower than it did in the books. She needs to wreck havoc for a while, first. And of course she'll go down. It's necessary for so many other things in the story. Besides, we've seen clips and interviews from her on her Walk already.

[ni2tre]

It's not slow at all, the show needs to convince the viewers that everything is going Cersei's way at first before all hell breaks loose.

[SerDesmondHume]

Cersei's plot seems really limited this season.

She isn't paranoid about Tyrion coming through the walls. She hasn't found any Tyrell coins. She knows Jaime freed Tyrion. She didn't find Shae in Tywin's bed (Tyrion barely mentioned to Tywin that he hooked up with his ex for that matter) making that plotline really underwhelming. She isn't really worried about debt and even if she was she shouldn't care about paying the iron bank anyways because they already funded Stannis for some reason.

Really her only motivation this season is Marge is catty and mean so I'll screw with her. She's not even the least bit unhinged. In fact her only reasoning for arming the faith militant was to round up one of the only two gay guys in Westeros.

[Ser Pounce FTW]

Cersei's plot seems really limited this season.

She isn't paranoid about Tyrion coming through the walls. She hasn't found any Tyrell coins. She knows Jaime freed Tyrion. She didn't find Shae in Tywin's bed (Tyrion barely mentioned to Tywin that he hooked up with his ex for that matter) making that plotline really underwhelming. She isn't really worried about debt and even if she was she shouldn't care about paying the iron bank anyways because they already funded Stannis for some reason.

Really her only motivation this season is Marge is catty and mean so I'll screw with her. She's not even the least bit unhinged. In fact her only reasoning for arming the faith militant was to round up one of the only two gay guys in Westeros.

They may be playing down the crazy but keeping the incompetent. The next few episodes will show it, one way or another.

[SerDesmondHume]

They may be playing down the crazy but keeping the incompetent. The next few episodes will show it, one way or another.

Hopefully. But I really feel like this is a missed opportunity. Lena Headey is more than capable of playing unhinged. Though it does have the benefit that I'm rooting for Cersei to take out that opportunistic creep Margaery Tyrell which I didn't have in aFfC.

[Varys Imilitude]

I hope she doesn't get arrested, and freed in the scope of 5 episodes. I think she's the best character in the books. When the charges against her were listed she seemed on par with some of the most evil people in history.

[AdmiralKyrd]

Well the plot is changed. They wanted to get Margaery more screentime and work Tommen in as an actual character, and now they're bringing LF and Olenna back into the mix as well. They didn't feel that they could do that with the existing Cersei story so they changed it from her descent into a mad rule into about her trying to play the Game of Thrones.

I always felt Cersei's AFFC chapters were some of the best "instantaneous payoff" chapters in the books, where as others had long buildups until they climaxed (and some are still building through ADWD). Instead they seem to have gone for more of an explosion situation with Cersei in S5 where fit will hit the shan somewhere in the second half of the season. It really kind of has made everything drag a bit without having that single "payoff" story in each episode. I guess the Wall has kind of taken that role so far, but it's still a lot of building.

Whether or not that decision ends up paying off remains to be seen.

[The One And Only]

The show can't win. People are complaining things are going to slow. Others are complaining they cut too much (which would slow current arcs down even more).

[Rhaenys' kitten]

Idk, it's not like they need Taena Merryweather or the Kettleblacks. The only witness they ever needed was Lancel, and since he's not stuck in the Riverlands, he can testify.

Are we sure that everyone really left Jamie and Cersei alone in the High Sept, those two times?

Are we sure that we've seen the last of Gendry?

[Facebookless Man]

The show can't win. People are complaining things are going to slow. Others are complaining they cut too much (which would slow current arcs down even more).

There is no contradiction there.

You can make a whole season of Cersei's fuckups and call it Veep. And people love it because a lot of little things are happening to the character and you get to see her grow crazier and crazier, and they make the viewer CARE.

Or, you can have a bunch of unrelatable characters randomly feeding people to dragons and arming religious fanatics for no reason in between sex and murder scenes that mean nothing to any of them. And people will call it slow because nothing is actually happening. Barristan's death is nothing, nobody got a chance to give a fuck about him. The faith militant is nothing, nobody even knows what the fuck they are about. Mossador or the guy who got bbqed meant nothing to anyone in the story or among the viewers, so they're nothing too. Three Xena wannabes torturing some dude in the desert is less than nothing.

The show is a succession of meaningless scenes featuring meaningless characters. It's boring BECAUSE they're rushing through the plot points, not in spite of that.

Bottom line, any writer worth a dime will make you care about the most mundane things, but a talentless hack will bore you to tears with pointless shock scenes and CGI dragons.

[Cas Stark]

The show can't win. People are complaining things are going to slow. Others are complaining they cut too much (which would slow current arcs down even more).

Yes. Poor pacing. It's a true mark of D&D's capability that they can make something rushed and dull at the same time.

Cersei so far doesn't even have a story. She's had some random scenes. There is no sense that she is ruling Westeros, because Tommen is a teenager with an adult wife. There is no sense that she's ruling Westeros badly, or getting paranoid, or doing any of the things that she did in the books.

She's wandering around, criticizing her brother, she saw a dead dwaf, had some cat fights with Marg, had a small council meeting where her uncle out of nowhere went off on her and then she met the High Sparrow and chatted with him and the next thing you know crazy cultists are busting up King's Landing and telling the king to fuck off, LOL.

It lacks cohesion, tension, it isn't building toward anything, there is no sense that Cersei has a plan, things happen, other things happen, that's it.

Thus, much of her story has been cut--burning the tower of the hand, her paranoia, trading sex for favors, her plan to frame Marg--and yet, her story is dull.

[The One And Only]

There is no contradiction there.

You can make a whole season of Cersei's fuckups and call it Veep. And people love it because a lot of little things are happening to the character and you get to see her grow crazier and crazier. And most importantly because they make the viewer CARE.

Or, you can have a bunch of unrelatable characters randomly feeding people to dragons and arming religious fanatics for no reason in between sex and murder scenes that mean nothing to any of them. And people will call it slow because nothing is actually happening. Barristan's death is nothing, nobody got a chance to give a fuck about him. The faith militant is nothing, nobody even knows what the fuck they are about. Mossador or the guy who got bbqed meant nothing to anyone in the story or among the viewers, so they're nothing too. Three Xena wannabes torturing some dude in the desert is less than nothing.

The show is a succession of meaningless scenes featuring meaningless characters, BECAUSE they're rushing through the plot points, not in spite of that.

We are seeing Cersei go slowly mad. There just isn't screen time to give it more time because there are so many other plot lines. If they added more plotlines, it would even take away more time from the current characters. Not that hard to understand from a basic numbers game.

[The One And Only]

Yes. Poor pacing. It's a true mark of D&D's capability that they can make something rushed and dull at the same time.

Cersei so far doesn't even have a story. She's had some random scenes. There is no sense that she is ruling Westeros, because Tommen is a teenager with an adult wife. There is no sense that she's ruling Westeros badly, or getting paranoid, or doing any of the things that she did in the books.

She's wandering around, criticizing her brother, she saw a dead dwaf, had some cat fights with Marg, had a small council meeting where her uncle out of nowhere went off on her and then she met the High Sparrow and chatted with him and the next thing you know crazy cultists are busting up King's Landing and telling the king to fuck off, LOL.

It lacks cohesion, tension, it isn't building toward anything, there is no sense that Cersei has a plan, things happen, other things happen, that's it.

Thus, much of her story has been cut--burning the tower of the hand, her paranoia, trading sex for favors, her plan to frame Marg--and yet, her story is dull.

Oh boy. The ranting and raving thread gets closed, and all of the crazies come to the rest of the forum.

How can you say she doesn't have a story yet? She is basically disbanding the small council, fighting with the Queen, and giving power to a new military power in the capital. On top of that she is trying to get her daughter back. That's a lot of story for one character so far.

[Facebookless Man]

deleted because waste of time

[The One And Only]

deleted because waste of time

Correct. I brought up 4 plotlines she has been involved with already this season, and then all of a sudden you give up.

The writing for Cersei has been fantastic this season. She is a poor ruler who is making horrible decisions. The show is doing a great job. Perhaps it is not a direct duplicate of the books. Cersei never has been. The show Cersei has always been better then in the books. Lena is to praise for that.